San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch “really believes” that Jimmy Garoppolo will be back as the team’s starting quarterback in 2021, but the rest of the NFL is not so sure. That includes Garoppolo’s former team, the New England Patriots, who still have the 29-year-old as their primary target for the coming season. This is according to Greg Bedard of the Boston Sports Journal, who reported this week that Garoppolo is “by far his ‘Plan A'” as a defender this season.
“The ideal situation for the Patriots next season,” Bedard said on his Patriots podcast, “is Jimmy G coming back here.”
This would require 49ers to initiate or at least listen to Garoppolo’s commercial offers, which is under contract until 2022. But that does not seem out of the realm of possibility, regardless of Lynch’s last insistence that Garoppolo could return to the center. After all, Lynch is still only a year away from admitting a possible search for Tom Brady as a replacement for Garoppolo, and coach Kyle Shanahan was even more open about the possibility of upgrading QB before 2021.
The Patriots’ reported interest in Garoppolo comes as no surprise. Four years after negotiating the choice of a second round for San Francisco, New England urgently needs a successor to Tom Brady, who gave way to an average and injured Cam Newton in 2020. The Patriots are reportedly not in love with this one. crop year of free agent QBs, which would include Newton, and they reportedly have already called about all veteran signal callers perceived to be available via trade.
Garoppolo spent the first four seasons of his career in New England as a reserve for Brady. A two-time Super Bowl champion with the Pats, he recorded solid numbers as a starter for the Niners, but has also struggled to stay on the pitch, losing 23 games since 2018.