Jimmy Garoppolo’s tenure in San Francisco keeps sounding weirder and weirder the more we learn about it.
Last week, it was revealed that after signing his five-year, $137.5 million contract extension with the 49ers in 2018, he ghosted the team, going for weeks without returning calls or texts. On Wednesday, Chris Simms of Pro Football Talk took it a step further, alleging that Garoppolo often goes completely off the grid and becomes impossible to track down.
“I’ve heard this from players, ex-coaches there,” Simms said. “He goes off radar all the time. All the time! Nobody can get in contact with him.
“His first year and offseason there, that’s when I was made aware of it. I’m not going to name the player, but I was at an event, and the player, who was a long-standing player with the 49ers, was like, ‘I can’t get the quarterback to call me back. I’ve called him every day for a month.’
“You hear it from everybody. I’ve heard it from ex-coaches who have moved on and have just gone, ‘Yeah, it’s weird.’ The organization has tried to reach out to him and explain things to him, and they can’t get a hold of him. To the point where I think they’ve had to drive to his house and knock on his door, and be like, ‘Hello? Are you alive? Are you there?'”
Garoppolo has had success throughout his career with San Francisco, helping the team to make the Super Bowl after the 2019 season and the NFC Championship game this past January. However, he has never quite gotten over the hump to become the star quarterback he was paid to be. His most famous moments as a 49er were airmailing Emmanuel Sanders on a throw that would have won the Super Bowl, and throwing a brutal interception in this year’s NFC title game that clinched the game for the Rams.
The 49ers clearly felt like the 30-year-old wouldn’t get them where they needed to go when they traded up to No. 3 overall in the 2021 NFL Draft for Trey Lance, who will take over as the starter in 2022. Garoppolo, however, is still on the roster after the team has failed to find a trade partner.
Some 49ers fans may not be thrilled about the team jettisoning the quarterback who has helped them get close to a championship, but ghosting the team may have helped lead to the decision – though it may be also why they can’t find a trade partner.
“I think there’s more than just the play on the field at hand here,” Simms said. “I think a lot of the NFL knows these stories a little bit, and I think that’s why we’ve had some teams drag their feet, not sure if they really want to go all-in on the Jimmy Garoppolo trade.”