Jimmy Garoppolo, 49ers in a delicate dance: QB will exit within a year, but plot twists lie ahead

The Niners traded up for their QB future, but a tricky present features Jimmy G and a coach who's 12-27 without him

Jimmy Garoppolo will be out of San Francisco within the next 11 months. Come February 2022, if not sooner, he is gone. The 49ers' recent massive trade to move to the third overall spot to take a quarterback basically cements that (barring major injury to the QB they draft, or the 49ers winning a Super Bowl with Jimmy G this year). We know that much. Everything else in this Jimmy G saga, however, remains in flux. It's open to interpretation. This is not quite the usual situation when a team makes a bold move to go grab one of the top quarterbacks in the draft. There doesn't have to be an immediate reaction. There isn't, frankly, a reflexive knee-jerk reaction in this instance. San Francisco will trade him … but the team doesn't have to do anything for a while. They can afford the salary – $25M – which is hardly unwieldly for a winning QB in this league. They don't need to slash him for cap space. His trade value – coming off yet another significant injury – isn't exactly at its peak. And, especially if they select one of the less-seasoned college quarterbacks, the case for them redshirting him for his rookie year in the Bay given the win-now composition of this roster is actually quite strong.