49ers news: Kyle Shanahan hints Jimmy Garoppolo could be gone

While the 49ers have previously remained committed to Jimmy Garoppolo, Kyle Shanahan’s presser on Monday hinted otherwise.

Shortly after the San Francisco 49ers elected to trade up to the No. 3 overall spot in the 2021 NFL Draft, questions poured in surrounding whether or not the Niners were still committed to their starting quarterback, Jimmy Garoppolo.

For reference, here was the exact quote from head coach Kyle Shanahan on Garoppolo on that date:

"He’s still coming in here trying to lead this team. I told him how excited I was that free agency went a lot better than we anticipated with being able to sign a lot more of our own players than we had thought going into it and that we’ve got a real good team coming back here and we still plan on him leading us and getting as far as we can with him."

Well, that doesn’t seem to be the case any longer.

While Shanahan didn’t exactly come out and say it during San Francisco’s pre-2021 NFL Draft press conference on Monday, the underlying theme is the head coach won’t go near guaranteeing Garoppolo stays on the roster by the end of draft weekend.

And he said so in quite the unique way:

"I can’t guarantee that anybody in the world will be alive Sunday so I can’t guarantee who will be on our roster on Sunday. So that goes for all of us."

Provocative. If Shanahan was still in Garoppolo’s corner, one would assume he would have said so outright and not danced around the question, let alone answering it with some humor.

Shanahan and Lynch did say Garoppolo has handled the process “professionally” and reiterated he was still working with the team, although any speculation surrounding Jimmy G’s immediate future certainly changes.

For most of the offseason, and even prior to San Francisco moving up to No. 3 in the draft, the thought about moving on from Garoppolo was at the forefront of the 49ers’ potential offseason moves. And not just about clearing more than $23 million in cap space. At a time, the Niners were linked to now-Carolina Panthers quarterback Sam Darnold while also being rumored in the sweepstakes for then-Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford and Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson.

Exactly how far any of those talks went is anyone’s guess, although the underlying theme here is San Francisco is eager to move on from Garoppolo at the soonest, best opportunity.

And it sure sounds like Sunday could possibly be that opportune date, at least according to Shanahan’s underlying statements.