Jimmy Garoppolo facing make or break year in 2019
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo has to stay healthy and play at a high level in 2019 or his time might be up.
Jimmy Garoppolo is almost out of chances with the San Francisco 49ers, and he hasn’t even really gotten one yet.
It may seem a bit premature to flip the old sand timer on Garoppolo’s time with the 49ers, but it’s really not.
But didn’t he just sign a five-year, $137.5 million contract in February 2018?
Yes, yes he did.
Despite the fact that Garoppolo just signed a contract within the last year-and-a-half, he’s in danger of being cut after this season, and there are a couple of reasons for that.
The first reason is that the 49ers can’t pay a guy $26.6 million against their 2020 salary cap if he either can’t stay healthy, help the team win games, or both.
The other reason is that the 49ers, who have been one of the most salary cap rich teams in the NFL over the past couple of seasons are projected to be more than $2 million over the cap in 2020.
Now, they could easily get under the cap without cutting Garoppolo, so if he plays well, there’s no reason to panic. But if he doesn’t play well, the 49ers actually have a really tough decision on their hands. Cutting (or trading) Garoppolo after this season would free up about $22 million for the 49ers.
The dead cap on his contract beyond this season is just $4.2 million.
There will be some strong options in next year’s draft class at the quarterback position, so this is a scenario the 49ers will possibly have to consider.
We’re not going to kill Garoppolo’s 2019 season before it even starts, but we’re just looking at every eventuality here. The 49ers want to see a scenario where they pay Garoppolo every cent of that $26.6 million in 2020.
If they’re paying him that much money, it either means they competed for an NFC West title, Garoppolo played at a high level, or ideally, both.
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There are other ways this team can shed some salary cap space next offseason, so that’s nothing to worry about, but if Garoppolo can’t prove himself worthy of that high of a price tag or if he doesn’t stay healthy, the 49ers could make the tough but financially smart decision to move on.