CrimsonCrew wrote:
A few thoughts on this. There are some outright Jimmy haters out there, but I think they're pretty few and far between. Some guys may underestimate his value, or overestimate the state of affairs at the QB position in the NFL, but I find that most have a pretty realistic view of Garoppolo's weaknesses.
I don't recall many people urging that we simply cut Garoppolo, though the reason some people were saying that was indeed because of the cap savings. I don't recall how much we would have saved, but it would have been $20+ million, as memory serves. Because we can roll that into this year, we would now have something like $25 million instead of the $3 million we currently have (I swear that figure was more like $5 or 6 million a couple days ago). After trading Garoppolo, we'd have $50+ million in cap space instead of the $30ish million we're expected to have now. The savings would have been dramatically higher, and that's not nothing. It would pay for a year of the Deebo extension and probably more. That said, I was personally always on board with keeping Jimmy and trying to turn him into draft picks this offseason, as I think most people were.
The calls to bench Jimmy really picked up around the time we were 3-5, and I'll admit that I was among them. My thought process was that we were effectively out of the playoff hunt at that point. We were something like four or five games back in the division race. We had lost arguably the most important player on our defense for the season in Verrett (IMO, only Bosa is even close to the significance, when we factor in position and caliber of replacements).
We were 1-5 over the past six games after almost blowing the opening two games to mediocre (or truly bad, in the case of the Lions) teams. Our CBs were a disaster, and outside of Bosa, our pass rush was completely underwhelming at that point (all credit to Kocurek and Ryans for turning that unit around). We weren't utilizing Aiyuk (1 reception for six yards that week, and only one game with more than two catches), Kittle was hurt, Mostert was out for the year. It was F-ing grim. If it was going to be a lost season, we might as well start getting Lance some seasoning. I also felt that the only real chance we had of making a SB run was if Lance played and was a revelation - admittedly that was a huge longshot.
A few weeks after that, I mostly changed my mind as our team rebounded and it became clear that none of the NFC teams were dominant. They all had glaring flaws, and it seemed as if we were as talented as any of them. But it wasn't looking that way earlier when the Bucs, Cards, and Packers were all looking pretty lethal.
In terms of the situation this offseason, IMO, the fact that there is a market for Garoppolo speaks as much or more to the state of the QB position in today's NFL than it necessarily does to Garoppolo. I remember being shocked when we traded Alex Smith for two second-round picks, and I was and am a pretty big Alex Smith fan (though I still thought it was the right decision to trade him and roll with Kaepernick). But the value of competent-yet-limited players speaks more to how hard is it to even find a serviceable guy at that position than the outright talent of those guys. For that reason, we're absolutely running a risk that the guy who replaces him will never be even as good as Jimmy is. But I still think we've got to take a chance on the upside, given the flaws Jimmy has that I have documented exhaustively in this thread and elsewhere. Like Smith, his physical limitations are too great to truly get him over the hump without a truly excellent team surrounding him, particularly when you throw in the repeated, crushing mistakes.
Ultimately, it appears that the FO did handle the situation well. Obviously we'll never know what would have happened if Lance played for half the year, but it's very unlikely we would have made it to within a few minutes of the SB. And Jimmy probably has elevated his value, though the past few games haven't helped much. And at least some of that increase in value is due to the fact that we didn't look to float him until after FA and the draft, when basically no one was looking for a QB, and there aren't a lot of QB options available this year. Let's all hope we get some real value for moving off of him.
In regards to the first paragraph and rolling over cap space. While on the surface yes, cutting Jimmy and rolling over the cap space would have found the 9ers with around 50 mil of cap space this season. However, its
VERY important to note that there is a
BIG difference between how much you are allowed to spend (available cap space) and what your actual cap number is. The salary cap number does not change because you have extra money to spend. Its basically the same as getting a new credit card with a $10,000 spending limit. While yes, it allows your buying power to increase by $10,000, but you didn't actually gain $10,000 in actual money. Every dollar you spend still counts towards the bottom line, and that bottom line does not change.
So Theoretically yes, in this scenario 9ers could have spent upwards of $50 mil this winter because they had the cap space. However, that would have resulted in the 49ers being WAYYY over the actual cap number. And it would have caused many complications down the line, and in subsequent seasons.
Rolling over cap is the main reason why you see teams get into cap hell. Like the Packers currently being like $45 mil over and the Saints being like $60 mil over the cap. They overspent because they were allowed to, but all they were doing was murdering their actual cap numbers.
As for the Lance vs Jimmy debate. From day one, I always have said that until the 49ers have a clearly better option at QB than Jimmy should be the guy. From what we saw from Lance this season, its pretty safe to say that he was not nearly close to being ready when the season started is still a work in progress. That said, Lance showed he made tremendous strides from his start against Arizona to his start against the Texans late in the season. Of course, play calling played a factor in that. But play calling is made by the guy who sees Trey every single day on the practice field, and in the film room/meetings. In that Arizona game, it was obvious that Kyle thought Trey was quite limited with what he could be trusted with and what he could bring to the table. Whereas in the Texan game, Trey looked like an actual QB out there, not just an athlete taking snaps like he did in the Arizona. This is very encouraging as it shows that Trey is indeed making big strides and we can tangibly see that he is.
When that same guy who sees/talks to Lance everyday determines that Garoppolo gives his team the best chance to win games. I think I will defer to that guy's judgement.
As for Garoppolo's market while of course his talent level/caliber of player he is a very big component to his value. But so does supply and demand, as you alluded to. The 9ers brass aren't dumb. This entire time they have been well aware of what the leaguewide QB landscape is, as well as what this year's draft class is shaping up as. They let all that factor into forming their 2021 QB plan. Everything was calculated, when they executed their plan.
As you mentioned its quite unlikely this team knocks on the door of another super bowl if Trey Lance was given the keys at any point this season. Of course, we'll never know for sure.
But from what we know to be fact, the 9ers had a successful season. They are also set up well moving forward by having a full season of development for the QBOTF, and will be getting assets + (actual) cap space for their much maligned former QB.