© Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports
The 49ers’ front office has made it clear that they intend on keeping Jimmy Garoppolo… at least for the moment. However, Kyle Shanahan did admit there’s a price tag for everyone on the 49ers, including Garoppolo, and including Shanahan (he was half-joking). But the 49ers intend to hold onto Garoppolo because they have re-signed most of their roster while adding key free agents like Alex Mack and Samson Ebukam.
So, what would it actually take to pry Garoppolo from the 49ers? According to Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer, that price tag is at least a first-round pick, which makes perfect sense.
“I was told that, yes, it’d take a first-round pick for the Niners to listen at this point, which of course would be nice for San Francisco to have after it yielded its firsts in 2022 and ’23 to jump from No. 12 to 3,” Breer wrote. “… As it stands right now? I don’t think the Niners feel any sort of urgency to move Garoppolo, which makes his market value completely irrelevant in comparison to the Niners’ price.”
Most of the key free agents who are intriguing are off the market, and acquiring another first-round pick might make it worth it to part with Garoppolo and add someone like Gardner Minshew, using the remaining cap space to pursue an A.J. Bouye or Melvin Ingram, or to front-load some extensions. It would allow San Francisco to add an elite edge or corner in the draft.
But anything less than that (unless it’s a substantial bundle of second and third-round picks, effectively equating to a first), with all those options being luxuries and needing to then train two new quarterbacks in Shanahan’s system, does not seem worth the 49ers’ time.