What if the San Francisco 49ers can't trade Jimmy Garoppolo? Are they better off waiting until closer to the draft? Will they cut the quarterback? Maybe the Niners will try to hold onto him for another season, hoping for a decent compensatory pick after next season? Owning Garoppolo and his hefty salary past Wednesday, when teams must be at or below the salary cap, could be problematic.
Of course, the 49ers could trade Garoppolo in the next 24 hours. However, the options appear to be dwindling with each passing day as quarterback-needy teams fill that need.
One NFL insider, Benjamin Allbright, feels the 49ers overplayed their hand in the handling of Garoppolo. With the New Orleans Saints, Carolina Panthers, and Cleveland Browns now focused on Deshaun Watson, Garoppolo's stock appears to have plummeted. It doesn't help that the quarterback underwent shoulder surgery last week and will miss a significant portion of the offseason.
With the Pittsburgh Steelers, Denver Broncos, and Washington Commanders having already added quarterbacks, if the Indianapolis Colts go with another option, like Marcus Mariota, the 49ers could be in trouble.
"The market on [Garoppolo] has cratered," Allbright said Tuesday on 95.7 The Game. "I don't think the Colts are in on him at all. I think it's going to be Mariota. I think the shoulder surgery thing is just adding salt to the wound there, and it's just a bad situation.
"The Niners were hoping to get a pair of twos [for] him, and at this point, they'd be lucky to get a day-three pick [for] him."
There was a rumor that, at one point, the 49ers had an offer of a second-round pick on the table. Nothing came of that, with others reporting that San Francisco felt they could get more by waiting.
So what went wrong with the 49ers' plan? Did they overvalue Garoppolo? Was it the injury?
"I think it's a combination of things," Allbright continued. "I think they overplayed their hand. Any time you're going to see the Washington [Commanders] take on Carson Wentz's salary and give up two draft picks to do it, and not go after Jimmy Garoppolo, who's been to a Super Bowl, I think that means you overplayed your hand because I feel [offensive coordinator] Scott Turner and the offense over there in Washington would be just fine with Jimmy Garoppolo at the helm. Carson Wentz is a giant question mark.
"I think what they've done is they just overplayed their hand, in the end. Everybody knew what was coming. They knew he was going to be available at the end of the year, so they went out and made their plans and their contingency plans, and it wound up you get around the circle, and he's the only one without a chair left to sit in."
You can listen to the entire conversation with Allbright below.
