On this episode of 49ers Talk, insiders Jennifer Lee Chan and Matt Maiocco break down the teams that could best utilize Jimmy Garoppolo next season.
Colin Cowherd is giving Jimmy Garoppolo his flowers, and he thinks the rest of the NFL should, too.
The Fox Sports analyst heaped praise upon the beleaguered 49ers quarterback during “The Herd” on Monday, aghast that Garoppolo’s trade market hasn’t exploded this offseason as his team looks to move on from him.
“We all have these moments where you think something and nobody else thinks it,” Cowherd said. “And you know, I think Jimmy Garoppolo [has] now become the most underrated player in the NFL -- by a mile.”
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Cowherd laid out his argument: Garoppolo has just one year left on his current five-year, $137.5 million contract, and his $24.2 million base salary for the upcoming season isn’t all guaranteed money.
“So if you sign him, you're not invested for years," Cowherd mused. "... That's way under market."
And between teams that need a starting-caliber quarterback this upcoming season and those that might need one in the future, Cowherd can’t figure out why Garoppolo isn’t worth a chance.
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“Didn’t we watch him out-play Aaron Rodgers in Lambeau? Yeah, we did,” Cowherd said. “He was 5-for-6, he outplayed Aaron.”
Cowherd, of course, was referencing the 49ers’ divisional playoff game against the Green Bay Packers last season, which saw San Francisco win a hard-fought battle in the snow thanks to a blocked-punt touchdown followed by a game-winning field goal.
But what about Garoppolo’s health? The veteran signal-caller suffered a torn ACL during Week 3 in 2018 that forced him to miss the rest of the season, and a high ankle sprain saw him sidelined for a considerable amount of games in 2020.
A calf injury resulted in Garoppolo missing one game last season, then he played through both a thumb tear and shoulder injury to help the 49ers return to the NFC Championship Game.
“This, ‘He’s never available,’ is nonsense,” Cowherd argued. “In the Super Bowl year, he played 19 of 19 games.
“Folks, what you don’t want to be [as] a quarterback is incompetent, chaotic, uncoachable. He’s incredibly coachable. He’s an all-star in the locker room. He was available in 95 percent of the games last year and in the Super Bowl year was upright for all of them. And there’s no market for him?”
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Cowherd called Garoppolo’s current situation “silly.” The quarterback had shoulder surgery in March, putting a damper on any offseason trade talks. Garoppolo reportedly began throwing weeks ago, but there’s still nothing on the trade front as San Francisco looks to deal their veteran quarterback and move on toward the future with second-year pro Trey Lance.
No interest in a player who led the league in yards per completion under Kyle Shanahan’s run-heavy offense and “wins playoff games” is incomprehensible to Cowherd.
“Jimmy Garoppolo wins games,” Cowherd said. “I find it fascinating there’s no market for Jimmy Garoppolo.”
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