Last year, I wrote a post on what happens if Jimmy Garoppolo could regress. As I said there, and I’ll say again, no one is arguing how impressive Garoppolo has been. But in that same vein, no one argued how impressive Scott Mitchell, Matt Cassel, and Matt Flynn were in their sample size either.
So let’s think about this. How long of a leash are you giving Garoppolo?
In his three-game campaign for 2018, Garoppolo was far from bad, but he wasn’t near the level we were used to in that magical 2017. He completed 59.6 percent of his passes and threw five touchdowns to three interceptions. Not bad, but not great either.
We’re rebooting this Garoppolo thing once more for 2019, but as we have said the 49ers are out of excuses to losing, when does Garoppolo get the same treatment? He’s been in the classroom all of 2018 while he rehabbed that knee injury. He’s sat in film rooms with Mike Shanahan, Kyle Shanahan’s father. He’s got a better grasp of terminology and vernacular of the 49ers offense. He just doesn’t have playing time.
But if he struggles, how much time do you give him? The 49ers can cut him after 2019 and take a dead money hit of $4,200,000.
Assuming Jimmy Garoppolo has a terrible 2019 (and give your definition of terrible), would you be ready to cut bait and go get someone in the draft or bring Garoppolo back for 2020? Would you not let him get through 2019 before you pull the plug?
Or do you give him two seasons to show us what he has? How long of a leash are you giving him?