Following the trade for New England Patriots quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, the perception around the NFL world was that he was the long-term answer for the San Francisco 49ers. However, that wasn't the reality inside the organization. Despite the public perception, general manager John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan went into the situation without feeling the pressure to commit to Garoppolo.

The 49ers were winless when the decision was made to trade for Garoppolo. The team had options at the position during the upcoming offseason. It was headed toward a high draft pick, and there was the connection between Shanahan and impending free agent quarterback Kirk Cousins. Lynch and Shanahan publicly admitted this offseason that the 49ers' master plan was always to acquire Cousins.


Garoppolo just kind of fell into the 49ers' laps.

Nothing was being handed to Garoppolo following the trade. He was in San Francisco to prove himself to Lynch and Shanahan. It was an audition. What was it about Garoppolo that eventually made choosing him more desirable over the other options?

"I think you go back to when we made the trade," Lynch said Tuesday on The Mighty 1090. "One of the things Kyle and I committed to then was, 'Hey, this is too good an offer to turn down, and we both think highly (of Garoppolo).' We had just, that offseason, tried to trade for Jimmy. So we obviously thought highly of his talent. We didn't know him personally. Kyle had been around him a little coming out of Eastern Illinois.

"But one thing we decided when we made that trade is: 'The rest of the world is going to think we're committing to him long term. We're bringing him in to see what he's got. Let's make that commitment to each other that that's all we're doing.'

"So we did that, and I think having said that, Kyle was extremely patient in making sure that we were setting Jimmy up for success. He had been in New England, apprenticed under Tom Brady, and all of that, but they played a completely different offense, different verbiage, the way they call things.


"And so Jimmy gets here mid-year. It would have been really easy just to say, 'Hey man, you're playing. We're going to figure it out as we go.' But instead, Kyle said, 'Let's give this guy time to at least be able to go out there and have success, set him up for success.'

"We waited four or five weeks, and he worked tirelessly, and I think that was a big part of it. We knew the talent. This guy was blessed with the ability to throw the football very effectively, and athleticism, and a lot of the qualities, the traits in terms of the talent aspect that you want out of a quarterback. But what we really saw during that time is how diligent and how determined he was to learn a system mid-stream, how his teammates reacted to him.

"I always think the greatest mark of a great player, a great leader, is you make people around you better. He made our entire organization better. And with that, was there some faith because he's only had seven starts in his lifetime? Sure. But we felt good enough about it to go make a commitment to him, and we're thrilled that we did."

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