There doesn’t seem to be much love lost with some of Jimmy Garoppolo’s former teammates.
Last October, former Patriots tight end Martellus Bennett joined former Patriots secondary partners and brothers, the McCourty twins on a podcast and tore into Garoppolo.
“We lost two games bro,” Bennett said. “One of them was because Jimmy Garoppolo was being a bitch. Decided not to play right before the game. Jacoby came in and played with a fucked up thumb and played his heart out, but Jimmy was just being a bitch about it all.
“You can’t win with a bitch for a quarterback, first of all. That was the whole thing with him. He didn’t want to come out and do anything cause his agent was trying to protect his body or some shit like that, which I can’t fault him for that, but you should’ve made that decision on Thursday, not Sunday.”
On Monday, Julian Edelman corroborated that on the I Am Athlete Podcast.
He said Garoppolo injured his non-throwing shoulder — pausing for a second after saying that, as Brandon Marshall chuckled — and proceeded to sit out the next game after practicing that week, leaving Jacoby Brissett to have to play through a torn ligament in his thumb.
“We go into week four and I guess Jimmy was practicing and then decided not to play and Jacoby played with no ligaments in his thumb, which you can’t do that as a quarterback, you can’t grip,” Edelman said. “And a lot a lot of guys got mad about it. A lot of guys got mad. I’m not gonna lie, I got mad about it. “
“You know, I sacrifice my body all day long. All day long. I was taking shots for this, numbing up that, broken ribs, shoulders, you know, grade three, hanging on by limbs just to play. And I can understand why Marty [Bennett] thinks like that.”
Garoppolo is currently recovering from shoulder surgery in his throwing shoulder, the timing of which frustrated the 49ers’ front office. He is expected to begin throwing some time in the next couple weeks.
Both general manager John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan expressed a near-certain belief that Garoppolo would have been dealt by now if he had not gotten surgery done when he did.