Peter King of NBC Sports jumped on KNBR Tuesday night and shared his thoughts on the San Francisco 49ers' devastating loss of starting quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo for the season. During the conversation, he looked at the situation from the perspective of television networks and the NFL schedule makers, who bet heavily this year on a Garoppolo-led 49ers team.
San Francisco has five primetime games on its schedule. In fact, it has five in a timespan of eight weeks right in the middle of the season. That's proof that the NFL expected big things from Garoppolo and the 49ers.
"I think it's not only devastating to the 49ers, I think it's devastating to a lot of TV networks," King said on the "Tolbert & Lund" show. "This is a team that the NFL had basically thought of in the offseason as a hot, hot primetime team. And, in my opinion, when you've got two games in the heart of the season on Sunday Night Football, that's the NFL saying, 'We really, really like the San Francisco 49ers.'
"So now with Garoppolo, you have to wonder, are those games going to be flexed? What's going to happen to those games exactly?"
Below is the 49ers' full slate of scheduled primetime games. They include two Sunday night games, which could be flexed.
- 10/15: Monday Night Football, 49ers at Packers
- 10/21: Sunday Night Football, Rams at 49ers
- 11/1: Thursday Night Football, Raiders at 49ers
- 11/12: Monday Night Football, Giants at 49ers
- 12/2: Sunday Night Football, 49ers at Seahawks
Unless the Garoppolo-less 49ers surprise, fans can almost certainly expect the December 2 game against the Seahawks to be flexed out of primetime. What about the October 21 matchup against the Los Angeles Rams? Sean McVay's team is probably entertaining enough to consider keeping the game as scheduled but nothing is certain with the Garoppolo hype postponed until 2019. Jared Goff versus C.J. Beathard probably isn't what NBC had in mind when it first looked at the schedule.
King said he spoke with 49ers general manager John Lynch after the team returned from Kansas City on Sunday night. While Lynch felt terrible about the injury, especially for Garoppolo, it's also a missed opportunity for the quarterback to gain experience.
"Think about it. He needs to play," King said. "He's going to be entering his sixth year in the NFL next year. Think, playing his sixth year and only having 10 starts. So you have to just say to yourself, here's a guy who should be in the third or fourth year of the prime of his career and he hasn't had one prime year yet. If I'm the 49ers, I'm especially bummed out about — however they would have played this year — he needs to get some mileage on the odometer, without any question.
"You're entering your sixth NFL season next year and having only had 10 starts? I mean, really, people just don't know enough about Jimmy Garoppolo yet. I think I want to love him, but I don't really know yet."
You can listen to the entire conversation with King below.
