Jimmy Garoppolo Is Having a Weird Career

Yesterday the Las Vegas Raiders signed Garnder Minshew, who is expected to compete for next year's starting quarterback with Aidan O'Connell. This leaves Jimmy Garoppolo as the odd man out. The Athletic's Dianna Russini reports that the team is expected to cut him tomorrow.

Signed to a three-year, $72.5 million contract last offseason, Garoppolo split the six games he started for the Raiders but was largely underwhelming, throwing seven touchdowns and nine interceptions. There figures to be a decent market for him — the Chicago Bears, Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos come immediately to mind — but it's harder to imagine a situation in which he enters next year as a team's full-time starter. With Sam Darnold off to Minnesota, he could actually end up back with the San Francisco 49ers, the place where he came perilously close to winning a Super Bowl while the public wondered if he was any good.

It's the latest chapter in what has to be one of the stranger NFL careers a quarterback has authored. He did enough at Eastern Illinois for the New England Patriots to use a second-round pick on him in 2014 and instill him as the backup to Tom Brady. Through his first two seasons he threw all of 31 passes. In 2016 he got the opportunity to start two games and won both of them, at some point along the way becoming a wedge between Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft as they tried to figure out what the hell to do with Brady approaching what would have been the end of a career for a mortal, perhaps not knowing he was going to play deep into his forties.

Then the San Francisco 49ers took a chance on him and were richly rewarded. Garoppolo went 5-0 during his first season in the Bay Area. A torn ACL knocked him out after three games in 2018 and then in 2019 he was otherworldly, leading the Niners to a 13-3 record and that aforementioned Super Bowl appearance. An ankle injury in 2020 once again caused him to miss the second half of the year and San Francisco struggled mightily in his absence. He jacked up his throwing thumb in 2021 and played through it, eventually suffering a loss in the NFC Championship Game. Finally, he went 7-3 before fracturing his foot two years ago, which led to Brock Purdy and a potential Super Bowl crown evaporating because the Niners were eventually turned to Christian McCaffrey under center.

Somehow he's been in the league for 10 years and will turn 33 as next year's playoff chase heats up. It's been a long, strange trip. It's looking more and more that we'll never reach a consensus on his ability and what he could have done if not for some terrible luck. Or if he could have actually been the long-term answer for the Patriots.

His is an odyssey so unique that there's no event horizon we'd laugh off. It's conceivable he only gets a few spot starts due to injury on middling teams from here on out. It's not insane to think he could be the guy in Denver and make a few more postseason runs. Hell, we wouldn't bat an eye if he pulled a Joe Flacco and re-emerged at like age 39 and looked awesome.

Hoping for the best for him but literally prepared for anything.