The 49ers were hopeful Jimmy Garoppolo’s 49ers tenure would come to an end via trade. It appears now that opportunity is off the table, leaving only one real conclusion to the saga that begin when the 49ers left SoFi Stadium as losers in the NFC championship game.
San Francisco, as badly as they don’t want to, will have to cut Garoppolo outright.
The extension of Deshaun Watson’s suspension to 11 games was supposed to revitalize the trade market for Garoppolo. Instead, the Browns are all-in on Jacoby Brissett per the Plain Dealer’s Mary Kay Cabot. If they’re not unloading assets to acquire Garoppolo, it leaves the well of potential trade partners dry.
Now the 49ers have until August 30 at 1:00pm Pacific to either release Garoppolo, or keep him on the 53-man roster until Week 1 when his $24.1 million salary becomes fully-guaranteed, or hold onto him into the regular season in hopes that a QB need develops for a team mid-season. The latter two of those three options seems unlikely.
This isn’t to say there won’t be suitors for Garoppolo as a free agent once he’s released. Cleveland might even be interested at that point where they can sign him to a new deal and not give up a draft pick for him to possibly replace Brissett. The Seattle Seahawks are another team that could use an upgrade under center. Plus some teams that haven’t come up in trade discussions could enter the mix.
For San Francisco though it appears their only decision left is whether to release Garoppolo with a couple weeks left in the preseason to give him a chance to catch on somewhere before the regular season opens. NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport indicated the 49ers don’t have an interest in letting him go before final roster cuts.
The trade partners aren’t materializing, which means the countdown is on for the 49ers and Garoppolo. There’s one logical way this can all end, and it’s due to happen inside of the next two weeks.
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