The San Francisco 49ers have remained patient with Jimmy Garoppolo, but the problem is everyone in the NFL knows there is a time limit on that patience.
The Seattle Seahawks missed on the Baker Mayfield trade to the Carolina Panthers, who traded for the former Cleveland Browns quarterback on July 6. The Panthers reportedly felt a Mayfield trade could have been done sooner than a Garoppolo trade, and that is why they chose to trade for the former No. 1 pick.
A trade to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers appears to be unlikely, but the 49ers are planning on going with second-year QB Trey Lance this season, meaning Garoppolo will likely be on his way out of San Francisco. The former New England Patriots signal-caller has not been cleared to throw yet, and that is just one of many hurdles for the 49ers to execute a trade.
"A few executives I spoke to believe the 49ers are a bit stuck here because they need Garoppolo to pass a physical coming off the shoulder surgery, they need to renegotiate his contract with that new team on that $24 million salary and the pool of suitors right now seems to be pretty small," ESPN reporter Jeremy Fowler said on ESPN on Monday. "Now a few things that are positives for San Fran: I'm told Garoppolo's recovery has remained on schedule. He should start throwing now, or if he hasn't started already, he'll do a ramp up phase till he can eventually pass that physical."
The Seahawks currently have Drew Lock and Geno Smith as potential starters for the 2022-23 season. Garoppolo would be a considerable upgrade, but would the 49ers trade within the division?
"And you have Seattle that's still out there. They were sort of implicated in the Baker Mayfield situation, didn't make that move," Fowler said. "I'm told internally, they have discussed the possibility of Garoppolo playing for them. They've done their film work to see how he would fit, tricky, certainly to do inside the NFC West.
"But the 49ers and Seattle know they can maybe wait this out because the 49ers have limited cap space, They want to re-sign Nick Bosa and Deebo Samuel, to do that they need some of Garoppolo's $24 million in base salary. Seattle probably knows that, maybe they won't try to make a trade. They'll wait for the 49ers to release him."
It's becoming less of a taboo to execute in-division trades in the past few years. In the 2021 NFL Draft, the Eagles and the Cowboys swapped first rounds picks, where the Philadelphia landed DeVonta Smith and Dallas nabbed Micah Parsons -- safe to say the trade worked for both franchises.
But trading away a quarterback who took his team to the Super Bowl and two NFC title games is another story. There aren't many quarterback-needy teams at the moment, and as Fowler noted, San Francisco does want to re-sign Bosa and Samuel, so the pressure could be on to get a deal done during training camp or preseason rather than wait it out.
