Every time it looks like the 49ers put the Jimmy Garoppolo history to rest, it takes another turnaround. GM John Lynch recently made headlines saying “there was no doubt” that Garoppolo would be the team’s starting lineup in 2021, but apparently there is some doubt after all. 
“Many in the league still expect Garoppolo to be available” in trade negotiations, wrote Ben Volin of the Boston Globe. Garoppolo is one of the few players in the league with a no-trade clause, so he would have to give his approval for any potential destination. Lynch’s comments always sounded a little hollow, considering that the team allegedly asked about Matthew Stafford before declining the asking price.
Head coach Kyle Shanahan he also doubted on several points about how committed he is to Garoppolo. Regardless of whether he is good enough to be the long-term initiator, there are also doubts about Jimmy G’s health problems, which Lynch recently recognized.
He played all 16 games of the 2019 season of the San Francisco NFC Championship, but played only three in 2018 and only six last year. Although his position as a 49ers starter is apparently not as unchanging as we might have thought earlier this week, Volin said he thinks the team “would have to be run over by a commercial offer” to move Garoppolo.
In his last column ‘Football Morning in America’, Peter King of NBC Sports wrote that if the 49ers can convince Garoppolo to waive the no-trade clause, he will be able to see them ‘all in’ Deshaun Watson. Just for entertainment, he presented some hypothetical trade scenarios, including a fun one in which Vikings send Kirk Cousins to San Francisco and the 49ers send Garoppolo to Houston in a three-team deal that ends with Watson in Minnesota. Obviously Shanahan and Cousins have a long history going back to their time together in Washington.
If Garoppolo were eventually traded, the Patriots would have to be considered as a potential suitor, since he was Bill Belichick that brought him into the league with a choice in the second round in 2014.
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