At what point did 49ers give up on Jimmy Garoppolo?

The 49ers didn’t trade up to No. 3 overall in the NFL Draft on a whim, meaning they’d been prepared to move on from Jimmy Garoppolo for some time now.

At the end of the 2017 not long after the San Francisco 49ers acquired quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo from the New England Patriots in a midseason trade, general manager John Lynch said something that rings somewhat ironic today.

“We want Jimmy to be a Niner for a long, long time,” Lynch told reporters at a season-ending press conference. And shortly afterwards, Garoppolo inked what was a record-setting five-year, $137.5 million contract to put him in line to be with San Francisco for a long time.

In the immediate wake of the 49ers’ blockbuster NFL Draft move with the Miami Dolphins, the trade that moved the Niners’ top pick in the draft from No. 12 overall to No. 3, it was clear San Francisco was no longer set on Garoppolo remaining at the helm of the franchise.

When did all that change?

The easiest and most commonly thought moment most assume is Super Bowl LIV when the 49ers had a 10-point lead over the Kansas City Chiefs. It wasn’t just that now-infamous would-be touchdown overthrow in the fourth quarter that sailed over the head of wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders, although that’s a throw you’d expect a $137.5 million quarterback to make. But there were failed reads and missed passes on other key third-down attempts earlier in the game, too.

Not surprisingly, those all led to the kind of speculation about the Niners’ front office and coaching staff losing faith in Garoppolo, as indicated by Denver’s KOA 850’s Benjamin Allbright:

Perhaps. But maybe it happened earlier.

The Super Bowl highlighted any speculation why head coach Kyle Shanahan didn’t fully trust Garoppolo. But preceding that big game were the two other playoff bouts, against the Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers, where Garoppolo was asked to pass just 19 and eight times, respectively.

While the 49ers were dominating both the Vikings and Packers, both defensively and via the run game, corralling Garoppolo’s arm was purely indicative of Shanahan likely viewing the quarterback as nothing more than a game manager, not a franchise-caliber signal-caller.

So, perhaps, Shanahan gave up on Garoppolo being a long-term option then. It’s possible.

But if that was the case, Shanahan and the 49ers remained totally committed to Jimmy G in 2020.

At least to a point.

Last offseason was the time the Niners flirted with the idea of signing now-Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady. Ultimately, San Francisco elected to pass on Brady, who just won his seventh Super Bowl and his first away from the New England Patriots, in favor of Garoppolo.

That’s a hindsight decision. But it does add evidence to the idea the 49ers were no longer 100-percent sold on Garoppolo.

The final kicker, of course, might have been Garoppolo’s ankle injuries in 2020, which forced him to miss all but five games. Sure, it’s hard to purely blame him for suffering the injuries. Yet in the wake of a serious ACL tear in 2018, Garoppolo had managed just one fully healthy season with the Niners in three years.

Even if San Francisco was leaning towards keeping Jimmy G into 2021 and beyond, those two unavoidable facts could have easily prompted the 49ers to explore other options.

They’ve committed to those options now.

Garoppolo’s inability to bounce back after a tough Super Bowl loss, which Allbright suggests was the tipping point anyway, was likely the final straw. After watching a division rival, the Los Angeles Rams, act on their frustration with their former franchise quarterback, Jared Goff, by trading him and a slew of draft picks away to the Detroit Lions for veteran quarterback Matthew Stafford, perhaps Shanahan, Lynch and the Niners finally decided now was the time to make their own move.

Perhaps they’d reached that decision earlier, only needing to find the right deal to make something happen.

Right now, it’s anyone’s guess. The only reality, however, is it’s now wholly apparent San Francisco was more than ready to move on.