Everyone is trying to figure out what is happening with Jimmy Garoppolo's trade value after news broke that the San Francisco 49ers quarterback will undergo shoulder surgery. He'll be sidelined for an estimated 16 weeks, meaning any interested teams won't get to see him throw again until late June or early July. That could be risky if you are trading for Garoppolo as your starting quarterback.
Most believe a deal will still get done, though. Garoppolo isn't an elite quarterback, but with it looking like Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson might stay put and the incoming rookie quarterback class looking weaker than most years, San Francisco might still find itself in a desirable situation.
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk believes a deal will still get done.
"Here's the reality: Jimmy Garoppolo is not a championship-level quarterback," Florio said Friday on 95.7 The Game. "He's had his chances to make championship-level throws. He almost blew the Cowboys game. He's a guy who's got a hard ceiling on what he's ever going to do. And at some point, you just are who you are, and that's fine. Not everyone is going to be a championship-level quarterback."
However, Florio adds that there are teams out there who feel they could upgrade at the quarterback position by adding Garoppolo. The Pro Football Talk writer and commentator named a few.
"If you're the Steelers, for God's sake, Mason Rudolph is their current starter," Florio said. "There's no way in hell they can go into the season and hope to have more than 50 percent capacity [in the stadium] by the end of the season if Mason Rudolph is going to be their guy, so Jimmy Garoppolo makes sense there."
Florio adds that Garoppolo won't make the Steelers a championship team. However, he doesn't need to. He just needs to be better than Rudolph. Florio believes that Pittsburgh starting Rudolph might result in a four-win season. Garoppolo could win twice that many games.
"Jimmy Garoppolo makes sense in Washington," Florio continued. "Jimmy Garoppolo makes sense anywhere that you look at the current starter and say, 'This guy isn't Jimmy Garoppolo.' And there are plenty of spots out there that we could look at."
Florio doesn't believe the 49ers will be forced to cut Garoppolo, and he obviously doesn't think the team will keep the quarterback. After all, he isn't wavering from the belief that Tom Brady will be San Francisco's Week 1 starter.
Florio adds, "Hell, the Broncos could end up deciding [Garoppolo is] the best option. George Paton told me this week, the GM of the team, their urgency is a 10, on a scale of one to 10, to get a great quarterback, and he's better than the guys they currently have."
What about compensation? What does Florio believe is a fair market value for the 49ers quarterback, even now with news of an impending surgery?
"Are they going to get a first-round pick for him? No," Florio said. "You have to do something where it's a pick in 2023, and it depends on how many games he plays. You know, that Carson Wentz package where there was a playing-time threshold, and once he played an amount, then that [kicked in]. I think that's fair, given Jimmy Garoppolo's injury history."
You can listen to the entire conversation with Florio below.
