One of yesterday's more uneventful games (San Francisco 27 – Seattle 7) is garnering plenty of headlines thanks to the offseason front office balancing of Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo. 49ers spent all offseason forcing the role of Trey Lance as their leading man while relegating Garoppolo to understudy, who nevertheless is valuable enough to trade, thus reinforcing the Trey Lance as leading man narrative.
Except nobody offers enough to trade for Garoppolo. His contract is reworked to reluctantly resign him as a backup, and after Trey Lance goes down and out for the year with a broken ankle yesterday, Garoppolo’s backup contract is what will keep San Francisco’s season on track.
Stepping in to replace Trey Lance yesterday, Garoppolo threw 13/21 for 154 yds, which isn’t great (60.6 QBR) but in Garoppolo fashion, got the job done.
Everything comes full circle when realizing that come next offseason the 49ers are back to where they started, with Trey Lance yet to prove himself and pressure over whether Garoppolo should be again resigned.
49ers are 31-14 when starting Garoppolo.