Jimmy Garoppolo: 4 teams that now wish they traded for 49ers QB

The 49ers couldn’t find a trade partner for Jimmy Garoppolo during the offseason, and now these four teams probably wish they had made a move.

All the talk and speculation of what the future held for San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo entering the 2022 season sure seems like a distant memory now.

From the inevitability of him being traded (including Rita Oak’s famous Twitter art) as part of the Niners’ plan to fully promote Trey Lance to the starting role, through a tense training camp where Garoppolo wasn’t even practicing with his teammates and to that shocking news San Francisco was ultimately going to keep Jimmy G around a little while longer.

Yes, it’s been quite the rollercoaster ride.

Garoppolo hasn’t been otherworldly this season, rather he’s been awfully similar to the signal-caller he was under head coach Kyle Shanahan dating back to the tail end of 2017. And yet the 49ers, now at 3-2 and in first place in the NFC West, are eyeing yet another deep playoff run.

Tack on Lance’s season-ending ankle injury, the Niners sure do appear to be geniuses for holding onto the veteran quarterback instead of trading him.

Other teams balked at trading for Garoppolo, though. And with some awfully bad quarterbacking going on around the NFL after five weeks, these four squads probably wish they had taken advantage of a would-be Garoppolo trade instead of sitting idle.

Broncos could have paid less for Jimmy Garoppolo instead of Russell Wilson

The Denver Broncos could have been an ideal suitor for Garoppolo. After all, they’ve got a close relationship with San Francisco’s general manager, John Lynch, as well as Shanahan himself.

And it certainly wouldn’t have involved the lucrative trade package Denver instead chose to send off to the Seattle Seahawks for quarterback Russell Wilson.

OK, so Wilson and the Broncos beat the 49ers back in Week 3 in one of the ugliest offensive showings of the season. But, stepping away from the small picture, the fact Denver not only gave up a king’s ransom to acquire Wilson but then inked him to a massive extension shortly thereafter spells all kinds of doom.

Wilson has only four passing touchdowns on the year, and his 59.4 completion percentage ranks 28th out of 32 qualifiers.

Garoppolo might not have been infinitely better in the offensive disaster that is Denver under first-year head coach Nathaniel Hackett.

But Jimmy G certainly would have cost much, much less.