SF 49ers: Jimmy Garoppolo suffered ‘whole new ankle sprain’

SF 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo didn’t reaggravate the high-ankle sprain suffered in Week 2, rather it’s a whole new injury.

In what could have been his last game with the SF 49ers last Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks, quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo didn’t reaggravate the high-ankle sprain suffered back in Week 2 against the New York Jets.

According to head coach Kyle Shanahan, speaking to the media on Tuesday, Garoppolo suffered an entirely new injury of the same nature and on the same ankle.

“He essentially had a whole new one, just on the same foot,” Shanahan said. “When you have those high-ankle sprains, you reinjure them a lot. But it’s a different way that he did it. So it’s basically doing it all over again in a different way.”

Shanahan also added the injury is “worse than the last one,” which already kept Garoppolo out two weeks after Week 2.

Garoppolo, still hobbled by his previous injury, wasn’t particularly effective during the SF 49ers’ 37-27 loss to the Seahawks, going 11-of-16 for 84 yards with an interception before being lifted in the second half.

And if surgery winds up being the route taken, it’s likely Jimmy G’s 2020 campaign comes to a complete close, leaving backups Nick Mullens and C.J. Beathard as the candidates to shoulder the remaining eight games of the regular season.

But there could be longer-term ramifications for Garoppolo in a Niners uniform.

Do SF 49ers move on from Jimmy Garoppolo in 2021?

With only a limited amount of cap space for next season — $18,081,621 according to Over the Cap, currently — and a slew of pending free agents the team will likely want to re-sign, it’s easy to see why San Francisco might consider moving on from Garoppolo during the offseason.

Former SF 49ers legend and Hall of Fame quarterback, Steve Young, said on ESPN Monday night he doesn’t envision Shanahan and the Niners wanting to stick with Jimmy G for much longer, given Shanahan’s offense hasn’t blossomed more with the quarterback under center.

Garoppolo is currently counting for 12.9 percent of the team’s payroll, which has been ravaged by the sheer number of players who have landed on injured reserve this season.

The quarterback, along with tight end George Kittle (foot), are also going to be heading to that list, which currently has over $48.2 million committed to players on IR.

Next year, Garoppolo can count up to $26.9 million against a salary cap that could drop as low as $175 million. Yet if the SF 49ers were to move on from him, they’d save $24.1 million in cap savings against $2.8 million in dead money.

But that would prompt a good question to ask: Exactly how would the Niners go about replacing him? The 2021 free-agent market at quarterback is shaky, at best, and San Francisco can’t exactly afford a trade for one of the highly paid QBs potentially to be made available during the offseason.

That would leave the 2021 NFL Draft, although that might be the biggest craps shoot of them all.

Nevertheless, Garoppolo’s injury casts plenty of long shadows on the franchise’s immediate future, and it’s not likely any resolution will be found anytime soon.