Will Jimmy Garoppolo be the 49ers' starter in 2021?
Given what has happened, the biggest issue facing the 49ers next offseason is what they decide to do about their quarterback situation. A year ago, I floated an idea about them possibly replacing Garoppolo with Tom Brady after the Super Bowl, but that was more of a pipe dream than something the team would realistically have considered. After 2020, things are a little different.
The ideal starting NFL quarterback means a lot of things to a lot of people, but broadly, every team wants three things. They want a passer who is cheap, reliably healthy and capable of a Pro Bowl-caliber ceiling when things are right around him. There aren't many quarterbacks who are ever all three things at the same time for long. Right now, the only one who might fit all three categories is Lamar Jackson.
Most teams are happy if they can find a quarterback who fits two of those three criteria; most commonly, they'll go for healthy and extremely productive (Patrick Mahomes) or cheap and healthy (Joe Burrow). In other cases, like late-career Eli Manning or Gardner Minshew, teams are willing to settle for one of the three. This is a relatively simplistic way to look at things, but it's a good place to start.
Can you say with any confidence that Garoppolo fits any of those three criteria? Start with the issue of health, since it's the most obvious problem for him. Past injuries aren't always indicative of future health, but his track record with regard to staying on the field is a serious, serious red flag.
In 2016, when Garoppolo took over for the suspended Brady in New England, he started two games before separating his shoulder, ending his brief reign as the starter. In 2017, he spent the season on the bench before being traded to San Francisco, where he took over the starting job for the final five games of the year. In 2018, he tore his ACL after three games. While he was healthy for all 16 starts in 2019, he suffered a high ankle sprain in Week 2 this season and then suffered the same injury again four starts after returning.
In three of his five seasons, Garoppolo has suffered a serious injury within three games. There has been just one season in his career in which he has started even six games in a row without suffering an injury. Some quarterbacks just struggle to play for extended periods of time without getting hurt -- Chad Pennington, Andrew Luck and more recently Carson Wentz coming to mind. At this point, the preponderance of evidence suggests Garoppolo might have his issues staying healthy.
The production is also a question, although less so than his health. Since joining the 49ers in 2017, he ranks 12th in the league in Total QBR, just ahead of Matthew Stafford and Aaron Rodgers. That's promising, but we can also poke holes in his performance. Garoppolo has thrown deep on only 7.2% of his throws over that time frame, the lowest mark in the league for any quarterback with at least 700 attempts since the start of 2017.
He has thrown deep less frequently than avowed underneath throwers like Drew Brees, Joe Flacco and Marcus Mariota over that same time frame. Quarterbacks don't necessarily need to throw deep to succeed, but it's pretty clear that coach Kyle Shanahan wants his quarterbacks to take and hit their shots downfield; Matt Ryan threw passes 20 or more yards in the air 11.2% of the time during his MVP season in 2016 -- when Shanahan was the offensive coordinator in Atlanta -- which was the 11th-highest rate in the league.
Does Garoppolo have a top-tier ceiling? We likely can't say anything with total confidence, but I'm skeptical. To try to get a sense of what each quarterback's ceiling looks like, I went through the last decade and found their top eight performances by adjusted yards per attempt (AY/A), then calculated the AY/A for those eight combined appearances. Garoppolo's eight best performances produced an average of 11.5 adjusted yards per attempt. That's 30th over the last decade, around Case Keenum, Joe Flacco and Jay Cutler. His numbers could rise with more appearances and opportunities to excel, but his best doesn't look to be extraordinary.
Is there something not accounted for in the numbers? Garoppolo was tied for the league lead with four fourth-quarter comebacks during the 2019 season, but even that number is generous. One of those drives started on the Pittsburgh 25-yard line after a fumble. The win over the Saintssaw him complete one 8-yard pass before converting fourth-and-2 with that 39-yard pass to Kittle, who (charitably) did the vast majority of the work. Other guys have drives like this, too, but I'm not sure we can point toward Jimmy G's fourth-quarter comebacks as proof that he's doing more than it seems.
Furthermore, he doesn't actually throw all that frequently. Even if we throw out the seasons in which he got hurt and just focus on 2019, he threw just under 30 passes per game. Twenty-six teams had starters with more pass attempts per game than Garoppolo. He then threw 19 passes in the wild-card round win over the Vikings and just eight in the NFC title game blowout of the Packers before throwing 31 times against the Chiefs in Super Bowl LIV. On his final 10 throws of the game, Garoppolo went 2-of-10 for 24 yards with an interception.
OK, so Garoppolo struggles to stay healthy and is a low-volume, low-ceiling passer. What about his contract? Well, funny you should ask. The 49ers structured his five-year, $137.5 million extension with a huge roster bonus in its first year (2018) to create more flexibility in the later years of the deal. There's no guaranteed money left on his deal, although he has $7.5 million in injury guarantees next year. Those injury guarantees shouldn't trigger if he misses the rest of the season, since his ankle sprain should heal with extended rest.
Next year, Garoppolo has an unguaranteed base salary of $24.1 million. His cap hit would be $26.9 million, and the 49ers would free up all of that $24.1 million if they chose to cut or trade him before June 1. At the moment, he would have the 11th-largest cap hit among NFL quarterbacks next season. If the team could guarantee he would be healthy for all 16 games, that would probably represent fair value. If there's a significant chance that he plays only five or six games, though, it's hard to see how his deal makes sense for the 49ers.
If they agree, the 49ers could try to get him to take a pay cut or release him outright. They could try to get a trade done, although I'm not sure there would be a huge market. Garoppolo has two years and $51 million in unguaranteed money left on his deal, which is more than the Panthers needed to sign Teddy Bridgewater in free agency last March. Bridgewater got $42 million over the first two years of his deal, $33 million of which was fully guaranteed at signing.
There would be one team that looms as an obvious fit for Garoppolo, of course. The Patriots will have more cap space than the 49ers and don't have a solution under contract for 2021. Cam Newton and Brian Hoyerare both free agents after the season, leaving Jarrett Stidham as the only quarterback under contract. They have publicly suggested that they think Stidham can be their quarterback of the future, but he has thrown four interceptions in 27 career pass attempts.
If the 49ers wanted to move on from Garoppolo, the Patriots would be the most logical suitors and the best landing spot for the veteran. The return would not be as exciting as Niners fans might hope; it's difficult to imagine New England sending much more than a mid-to-late-round pick in return for him. How could San Francisco replace him?
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