Mike Silver: Jimmy Garoppolo routinely ghosted the 49ers in the offseason

While the Browns might be considering Jimmy Garoppolo after all, a report broke yesterday that may give them pause.

According to Mike Silver, Jimmy Garoppolo was annually unreachable for large stretches of the offseason every year of his 49ers career except one.

“When the press conference [announcing his new contract] ended, Garoppolo shook hands, flashed his multi-million-dollar smile and disappeared into the offseason ether. That important work, to his coaches’ chagrin, would have to wait.

‘Once he left that press conference nobody heard from him for weeks and weeks,’ recalled one member of that coaching staff. ‘He didn’t return calls, he didn’t return texts — he basically just vanished. And we were looking at each other going, ‘What just happened?’”

This wasn’t a one-year thing, either. “The Jimmy Garoppolo vanishing act,” as Silver called it, occurred every year of Garoppolo’s tenure with the 49ers except last year. While Silver stops short of saying whether that sudden change had anything to do with the Niners acquiring his replacement in Trey Lance, I’ll just say that would be one hell of a coincidence if it did not.

We have heard mentions of Garoppolo going dark over the years. George Kittle famously referred to the phenomenon during Super Week in Miami.

While we don’t know if George was talking about texts in-season or in the off-season, those words do hit a little differently now, as does Jimmy’s response.

There are some areas where Trey Lance won’t be as good as Jimmy Garoppolo, but apparently, devoting himself to his craft in the offseason isn’t one of them. Videos of Lance throwing with receivers have popped up all spring and summer long, as have many interactions between himself and his teammates on social media. Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch have both referred to Lance as being “made of the right stuff,” and I can’t help but wonder if this is part of what they were talking about.

Lucikly we’ll all get to see how much work Trey has put in during the offseason tonight when the 49ers open the preseason against the Green Bay Packers. Make sure you join us after the game on the Niners Nation YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook pages for our Instant Reaction podcast, where we answer your questions about everything that happened.

Make sure you follow the Niners Nation Podcast Network now! Our daily 49ers in Five podcast gives you the latest news, the most interesting press conference and radio interview clips, and everything else that you need to know - all in less time than it takes to finish your morning coffee.