Albert Breer spoke with San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch for his Monday-morning feature for Sports Illustrated. Among the topics of conversation was quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.
None of the news portions were anything you hadn't heard before. They included the 49ers contemplating whether or not to add Tom Brady, which led Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan to take a hard look at their own quarterback before realizing that they already had their long-term answer in Garoppolo.
The team had just decided to pull the trigger on a trade to ship off one of its best players in DeForest Buckner to the Indianapolis Colts. Would it be willing to do something similar with Garoppolo? The answer was no.
"We went back and took a hard look at Jimmy," Lynch told Breer. "We grinded for a period of three, four days. And I think we both came back and said, 'You know what? We've got the long-term answer in our building right now, and we feel really strongly about that.' As enticing as it might be—and we felt like it was a responsibility to take a look, because that's a very unique situation—we did that, we talked with Jimmy, and told him just what we did.
"I think he appreciated that. And the great news is we're more convicted than ever that Jimmy's the guy that we want to work with going forward. We feel like he's got a lot more in him. Shoot, he was a huge reason we were in the Super Bowl last year, and why we have every intention of getting back and finishing the job."
Armed with Garoppolo back at quarterback, Lynch and Shanahan feel like the roster is capable of returning to the mountaintop but, this time, coming away with the elusive championship.
While critics throw a significant amount of blame for the Super Bowl LIV collapse on Garoppolo's shoulders, inside the building, the 49ers believe they wouldn't have even been there without him.