While playoff teams and those still on the hunt have a lot to look forward to in the 2020 season, most NFL teams have already begun to turn their attention to the upcoming 2021 season. As such, we have officially entered what I like to call the Season of Lies.
Much like the Christmas season in America’s retail outlets, the Season of Lies lasts for months. Basically, from now until the end of the NFL Draft, don’t believe anything you hear about players, teams, coaches and especially the defenders.
I brought this up because of Kyle Shanahan’s comments yesterday about Jimmy Garoppolo. It is very good for Kyle to say what he expects to happen. It’s the last week of December 2020 – those expectations are worth very little. He was saying similar things right now, two years ago, about DeForest Buckner, and we all know how it ended.
(Check out today’s Stats & Eggs podcast below to hear Kyle’s quote and more ideas on why I don’t believe it)
And that doesn’t just mean 49ers. Last year, Arizona Cardinals published one of the most infamous tweets of 2019.
We all know now that Kyler Murray was recruited and Rosen was negotiated a few months later.
It is not difficult to find other examples as well. The Vikings “had no intention” of negotiating Percy Harvin in February 2013, but sent it to the Seahawks a month later. The Steelers would not give teams a discount when negotiating with Antonio Brown, and then gave up on the most productive wide receiver of their time for a 3rd and 5th round pick in the draft.
None of this, I must point out, is done maliciously. Teams are just doing what they need to put themselves in the best position to succeed, but that doesn’t make what they say more believable.
Don’t get me wrong, I love talking about these things. Dive into the latest comments from a team or rumor that trends on Twitter are endlessly fun. Just don’t consider the quarterback issue closed simply because of something Kyle Shanahan said at a news conference in December.