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Why free agency was good for Jimmy Garoppolo despite 49ers’ offensive losses
Mar 22, 2020 at 9:24 PM
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The San Francisco 49ers didn't make any quarterback moves this past week — the start of free agency. The team
lost wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders to the New Orleans Saints and
parted ways with starting guard Mike Person. Yet, it was still a pretty good week for quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.
All doubt of who would be the 49ers' quarterback for the foreseeable future was erased. Garoppolo's teammates may never have doubted who their quarterback would be, but they heard all of the offseason chatter.
"We hear stuff just like the fans, and everybody else in the media hears stuff," defensive end
Arik Armstead said on Wednesday. "It's funny to look at and see, but when you're in the building, and you know what Jimmy has brought to our team, putting us on the right track, really turning around our organization, you don't expect anything like that to change.
"He's our guy, he's the leader of our team, and he's going to continue to do that."
Wild speculation surrounded the possibility of
Tom Brady landing with San Francisco, thanks in large part to media personalities like Skip Bayless and Mike Florio. Tom Curran further
sparked the rumors. 49ers fans were smart enough not to take the talk too seriously but had to endure the media chatter.
Brady didn't land with San Francisco. Although, there was a report that the
Niners would have been his top choice. Brady signed a two-year deal with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, finally ending all of those rumors.
Then you had Kirk Cousins, who was entering the final year of his contract with the Minnesota Vikings and seen as a possible replacement for Garoppolo, should things not pan out with the current 49ers quarterback. Head coach Kyle Shanahan has never hidden his fondness of Cousins, who he had hoped to land before Garoppolo entered the picture.
Even if Brady had signed with San Francisco, sending Garoppolo elsewhere, there was speculation that Cousins might be a candidate to replace Brady down the road.
Cousins signed a two-year extension with Minnesota, keeping him under contract through 2022. He will be 34 years old when that deal expires.
So all in all, it was a good week for Garoppolo, who won't have to listen to the outside noise surrounding his future anymore. That's comforting news in an offseason that was saturated with quarterback possibilities.
Now, 49ers fans don't have to hear about Brady or Cousins anymore, and San Francisco can look toward the draft to provide Garoppolo with more weapons.
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