Stats & Eggs: Jimmy Garoppolo and the season of lying

While playoff teams and those still in the hunt have plenty left to look forward to in the 2020 season, the majority of NFL teams have already started to turn their attention to the 2021 season to come. As such, we have officially entered what I like to call, the Season of Lying.

Much like the Christmas season at America’s retail establishments, the Season of Lying lasts for months. Basically from now until the NFL Draft is over, don’t believe anything you hear about players, teams, coaches, and especially quarterbacks.

I bring this up because of Kyle Shanahan’s comments yesterday about Jimmy Garoppolo. It’s all well and good for Kyle to say what he expects will happen. It’s the last week in December of 2020 - those expectations are worth very little. He was saying similar things at this time two years ago about DeForest Buckner, and we all know how that turned out.

(Check out today’s Stats & Eggs podcast below to hear Kyle’s quote and more thoughts on why I don’t believe it)

And that’s not to single out the 49ers, either. Just last year the Arizona Cardinals put out one of the most infamous tweets of 2019.

We all now know Kyler Murray was drafted and Rosen was traded just a few months later.

It’s not hard to find other examples as well. The Vikings had, “no intent” to trade Percy Harvin in February of 2013, then sent him packing to the Seahawks a month later. The Steelers weren’t going to give teams a discount when trading Antonio Brown, and then gave up the most productive wide receiver of his era for a 3rd and a 5th round draft pick.

None of this, I should point out, is done maliciously. Teams are just doing what they need to do in order to put themselves in the best position to be successful, but that doesn’t make what they say any more believable.

Don’t get me wrong, I love talking about this stuff. Diving into the latest comment from a team or rumor that trends on Twitter endlessly entertaining. Just don’t consider the quarterback matter closed simply because of something Kyle Shanahan said at a press conference in December.