Jimmy Garoppolo is going to Super Bowl LIV.
The San Francisco 49ers defeated the Green Bay Packers 37-20 on Sunday night to advance to the Super Bowl where they’ll meet the Kansas City Chiefs. While the 49ers did nearly all of their damage on the ground, rushing for 285 yards as a team, many still recognize that Garoppolo is on his way to being a great quarterback in this league. These two weeks leading up to the championship will bring much speculation on the move that sent Garoppolo to San Francisco from New England. However, it’s pretty clear that both teams benefited from the move.
On October 31, 2017, the New England Patriots traded Jimmy Garoppolo to the San Francisco 49ers for a second-round pick in the 2018 NFL Draft.
At the time, the Patriots had a 40-year-old Tom Brady who was 6-2 on the year and had just won his fifth Super Bowl. With the goal of playing to 45, Brady had at least five more seasons of the quarterback in Foxboro. Garoppolo, days from 26 at the time, was in the final year of his contract. A move had to be made to decide the future of the team.
The 62nd overall pick in 2014 had made a name for himself during his small stint filling in during Brady’s suspension following Deflategate. Garoppolo would’ve hit the open market in the off-season and likely would’ve been paid rather handsomely for a quarterback with only two career starts. In order to pay Garoppolo, the Patriots would’ve had to get him to agree to back-up Brady for a few more seasons, trade their franchise cornerstone, or use the franchise tag.
49ers general John Lynch tried to make an offer for Tom Brady prior to the 2017 season and was scoffed at by Bill Belichick. So, even though there were reports later on that Belichick wanted to keep Garoppolo over Brady, it was clear that there was some desire to still keep Brady.
And, there was absolutely no chance of Garoppolo staying in New England and backing up Brady when he believed he was ready to be an NFL starter.
New England ended up trading that second-round pick, which they traded a number of times to create more picks. Here are the picks and players they netted (in part or in full) from the original Garoppolo pick:
- LB Christian Sam (now with Lions)
- Partial: CB Duke Dawson (now with Broncos). (*The Patriots traded him for a 2020 sixth-round pick from Denver.)
- RB Damien Harris (5 snaps in 2019)
- Partial: CB Joejuan Williams (85 snaps in 2019)
- Partial: OT Yodny Cajuste (season on IR)
- QB Jarrett Stidham (backed up Brady in 2019)
- 2020 fourth-round pick from Chicago.
While none of these picks have panned out yet, it’s possible Harris, Cowart, and Williams could play larger roles in the 2020 season.
Since the trade, the Patriots, with Brady under center, have gone 30-10 in the regular season and 5-2 in the postseason. They’ve been to two Super Bowls and have won one of them. And, if you want to hold Brady to his promising of playing until 45 years old then there’s potentially two more years of Brady.
San Francisco got their quarterback. They believed Jimmy Garoppolo could be among the top-tier NFL quarterbacks, and it seems like he’s on that path. This season, his first full one as the starter, the Niners went 13-3 and are Super Bowl bound. There’s not much more that can be asked of a quarterback.
It’s hard to say picking Brady over anyone is a losing scenario. Garoppolo would have to win multiple Super Bowls and Brady would have to never make it to another one in New England for this decision to look one-sided. There are a few lingering questions. But the biggest one: can the Patriots find a quarterback of the future? And how will he measure against Garoppolo?
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