The 49ers had a plan to absorb an injury to their starting quarterback. Neither they nor many other NFL teams have a fallback plan ready for dealing with injuries to two quarterbacks. After losing Trey Lance to a season-ending broken right ankle in Week 2, Kyle Shanahan's team has been dealt a second brutal blow. Jimmy Garoppolo is expected to miss the rest of the season after fracturing his left foot in Sunday's 33-17 win over the Dolphins.
The injury puts a damper on what is now a five-game winning streak for the 49ers and brings an end to what might have been the best stretch of Garoppolo's career. Over his past five starts, he completed nearly 72% of his passes, averaged 8.0 yards per attempt and threw eight touchdown passes without a pick, with the 70.8 QBR he posted good for eighth-best in football. As a free agent after the season, Sunday might have been Garoppolo's last game in a San Francisco uniform.
Let's look into the repercussions and impact of the Garoppolo injury, both on the 49ers and the rest of the league, through 2022 and into next season. San Francisco went all-in at the trade deadline last month, dealing significant draft capital for running back Christian McCaffrey, which makes their short-term future more complicated. We'll start there:
Jump to a question:
Can the 49ers win a Super Bowl with Brock Purdy?
Are there QBs available to sign elsewhere?
What does this mean for their QB job in 2023?
How should we look back at the Garoppolo era?
Which NFC teams could now take advantage?
Can the 49ers win games with Brock Purdy at quarterback?
As we saw Sunday, yes. After Garoppolo suffered his injury on the opening drive, Purdy came into the game. The rookie seventh-round pick, whose nine NFL passing attempts before Sunday came in a Oct. 23 loss to the Chiefs, played about as well as the 49ers could have hoped. He went 25-of-37 for 210 yards, throwing two touchdown passes against one pick. He took three sacks, but the 49ers scored 20 points on 10 drives with Purdy in the game before kneel-downs.
The offense was conservative, which was unsurprising given Purdy's inexperience and sudden move into the lineup. Purdy averaged just 5.3 air yards per pass attempt, the fewest of any other quarterback in the league. He threw just one attempt 20-plus yards downfield, an incompletion near the end zone to Deebo Samuel. His 40 dropbacks generated 0.1 passing EPA; he was essentially anonymous when it came to generating points for the offense. San Francisco won comfortably anyway.
The track record of seventh-round picks playing during their rookie season is pretty scary, frankly. Pro-ready passers don't fall to the seventh round, which means the quarterbacks who do come off the board during the final round of the draft are usually long-term projects with slim chances of succeeding.
Tom Brady famously turned into the greatest player in league history as a sixth-round pick, but the most notable seventh-round passers in recent memory might be Matt Cassel, who barely played during his time at USC, and Ryan Fitzpatrick, who played at a lower level at Harvard. Purdy put plenty on tape as a four-year starter at Iowa State.
Brady, Fitzpatrick and Kurt Warner obviously matured into much more than what their draft status would have projected at the professional level, but it took time. Brady was in his second season when he launched onto the national stage. Warner, an undrafted free agent, was a 28-year-old with years of experience in NFL Europe before his stunning breakout in his second season. Fitzpatrick didn't post an above-average passer rating as a starter until his 10th season.
Since the turn of the century, quarterbacks who were drafted in the seventh round have gone a combined 1-14 in their starts in their first active seasons. The one win came in 2004 from a 49ers quarterback in Ken Dorsey, who is better known now as the offensive coordinator and chief tablet destroyer for the Bills. Collectively, these passers have completed 53% of their passes, averaged 5.5 yards per attempt and thrown 15 touchdown passes against 32 picks. Even allowing for how passing levels have risen over that time, these quarterbacks have been sub-replacement options when forced into duty.
I'm not sure Purdy is better than any of the quarterbacks in that group, but I'm sure no rookie seventh-rounder in recent memory has been pressed into service in a better situation than the new starter in San Francisco. Most rookie seventh-rounders are toiling for terrible teams, some of whom were likely tanking, either knowingly or by accident.
Purdy enters into what might be the most welcoming situation for any quarterback. He's surrounded by superstar playmakers, with McCaffrey, Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk and George Kittle all active Sunday. His blind side will be locked down by Trent Williams, arguably the league's best left tackle. His coach is Shanahan, who many consider to be the most influential offensive coach of this generation.
Perhaps more importantly, Purdy will be aided by a defense which already ranked No. 5 in defensive DVOA headed into Week 13. While Fred Warner & Co. gave up a 75-yard touchdown on the first play from scrimmage, they settled in afterward and gave Tua Tagovailoa his toughest game of the season. The Dolphins went 0-for-7 on third down, produced just 14 first downs and turned the ball over five times in a comprehensive defeat.
If the 49ers didn't always ask much of Garoppolo during his run as their starter, this team will ask as little of Purdy as possible. If he can get the ball out on time and let his receivers do the work after the catch, Shanahan and the rest of the organization will be happy. I don't think anybody anticipates Purdy will be able to keep the Niners in shootouts, but if the rest of the team does their job, he won't be in many high-scoring games.
Can the 49ers win the Super Bowl with Purdy?
This is a much tougher question, and I don't have the same answer. Before the season, I picked the 49ers to advance to the Super Bowl, but that was two quarterbacks ago. It's difficult to imagine a scenario in which they don't need Purdy to win them a playoff game along the way, and virtually all the evidence suggests a player with Purdy's pedigree and level of experience will struggle to pull that off.
The most obvious comparison for optimistic 49ers fans is to Nick Foles, who was nearly out of football entirely before turning his career around. Foles took over for an injured Carson Wentz in December 2017, and while some were still optimistic about the Eagles' chances of competing for a Super Bowl, it was reasonable to believe Philly's dreams of winning a title went down with Wentz. Of course, you know what happened next.
There are a few major differences between the Foles situation and what Purdy steps into with the 49ers. For one, Foles was a much more experienced, successful pro passer. The Air Raid quarterback came into the league as a third-rounder for Andy Reid in 2012. Foles then pieced together one of the most incredible half-seasons in league history during the 2013 season under coach Chip Kelly, throwing 27 touchdown passes against two picks in 10 starts. His career stalled out with the Rams after that -- and I don't think anybody expected what he did in the Super Bowl against the Patriots -- but there was more pedigree with Foles than there is with Purdy.
More notably, while Purdy steps into a great situation in terms of team talent, Foles stepped into a better playoff position. Those Eagles were already 11-2 and significant favorites to land the top seed in the NFC. Philadelphia had a 93% chance of finishing with the No. 1 seed when Foles took over, and despite some uneven play against the Raiders and Cowboys at the end of the season, the Eagles did land the top spot.
Having that No. 1 seed makes all the difference in the world, especially with the league now in an era in which only one team in each conference gets a bye. The Eagles got a week to rest their players and had to win only two home games to advance to the Super Bowl. It's a much easier path than winning three games, especially when at least one of them is likely to come on the road.
The 49ers have a one-game lead on the Seahawks in the NFC West with the head-to-head tiebreaker in hand, but it's difficult to see them clearing a path to the top seed in the conference. ESPN"s Football Power Index (FPI) projects them to have an 0.1% chance of finishing with the top seed in the conference. At 8-4, the 49ers are three games behind the 11-1 Eagles and two behind the 10-2 Vikings in the race for that first-round bye. Even if they were to win each of their final five games and finish 13-4, The Upshot's model assigns them a only a 16% chance of claiming home-field advantage.
Since 2000, just one quarterback drafted in the fifth round or later has even started a playoff game during his rookie season. Houston's T.J. Yates won a home game over the Bengals before losing the following week to the Ravens in 2011. Undrafted Rams quarterback John Wolford was technically a rookie when he started (and almost immediately exited) a win over the Seahawks in the 2020 postseason, but the current starter in Los Angeles actually was three years removed from college football before throwing six passes in the victory.
Right now, the Niners are most likely to end up as the 3-seed in the NFC. While avoiding the 4-seed would allow them to avoid the second-place team in the NFC East in the wild-card round, Shanahan's team likely will need to win two road games with Purdy to advance to the Super Bowl. Anything is possible in the NFL, but it will be much harder for San Francisco to do this with Purdy than it was for the Eagles to win the NFC (and the Super Bowl) with Foles.
Can the 49ers acquire someone with more experience than Purdy?
They already have. In addition to practice-squad quarterback Jacob Eason, they signed a veteran on Sunday night in 36-year-old Josh Johnson. The AAF and XFL veteran has thrown 353 passes since entering the NFL in 2008, with those throws producing a career passer rating of 70.7. He has gone 1-8 as a starter, including a win and three losses while filling in for contending teams in Washington and Baltimore during the second half of recent seasons.
Johnson spent time with the 49ers in 2020 and with the Jets last season, so he is familiar with Shanahan's offense. That familiarity is his best asset to the organization. I'm not sure he's worse than Purdy, but adding Johnson doesn't solve the competitiveness problem for the 49ers. I would expect him to be the backup on game day, given that Eason is only 25 and was acquired in mid-November.
Of the options available on practice squads, Johnson was one of two realistic choices. The 49ers also could have inquired about Buffalo's Matt Barkley, but Johnson's experience in the building likely tipped the scales in his favor. Just about every other practice-squad passer is as inexperienced as Purdy.
Are there players on other teams the 49ers could end up adding to their roster?
The trade deadline has passed, which limits San Francisco's flexibility. It had a veteran quarterback on its roster in Nate Sudfeld, who was given $2 million guaranteed this offseason to serve as the backup to Lance, but Sudfeld was cut after Garoppolo restructured his deal. Sudfeld subsequently signed with the Lions. The 49ers could claim Sudfeld if he was on Detroit's practice squad, but the surging Lions have Sudfeld on their active roster as the primary backup to Jared Goff.
Other former Shanahan pupils probably aren't about to be released, which would be the only way for them to hit the San Francisco roster. C.J. Beathard is the No. 2 passer behind Trevor Lawrence in Jacksonville, while Nick Mullens is the backup to Kirk Cousins in Minnesota. Former 49ers starter Brian Hoyer is third on the depth chart in New England, but he suffered a concussion in Week 5 and doesn't appear close to returning. The Patriots also likely value Hoyer's experience in a room with two young quarterbacks.
A more notable option would be Matt Ryan, and had this injury happened before the trade deadline, a deal between the 49ers and Colts would have made sense for both sides. Now, it's far more difficult. The Colts turned back to Ryan after hiring Jeff Saturday as interim coach, and he has been competent since rejoining the lineup. Indy also would be in a significant financial bind if it cut Ryan, with nearly $31 million in dead money hitting its cap. You can never rule anything out with Jim Irsay and the 2022 Colts, but even if they wanted to do Ryan a solid, I'm not sure it's realistic.
There was one other team in the market that had the ability to do something creative and save money, and we saw them execute that plan Monday morning. The Panthers had a pair of quarterbacks who didn't figure into their future and were owed significant money over the remainder of the season in Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield. Darnold, the team's current starter, is owed $5.2 million over the remainder of the season. Mayfield is due $1.4 million. If these deals have offsets, the Panthers could cut one of them to be picked up by another team and save that money over the rest of 2022.
On Monday, the Panthers made their choice and cut Mayfield, who is now subject to the waiver system. The timing here is obvious; if the Panthers were planning on cutting Mayfield before the Garoppolo injury, they would have waived him before their Week 13 bye. Twenty-four other teams could claim Mayfield before the 8-4 Niners get their chance, but outside of maybe the Colts, there's not really a logical fit between a team and Mayfield before San Francisco.
There's no sugarcoating things: after a promising 2020 season, Mayfield struggled through an injury-impacted 2021, and he was terrible for the Panthers in seven games this season. At the same time, Mayfield's best stretch of play as a pro came in a Shanahan-style offense under Kevin Stefanski in Cleveland, so he might be able to learn some elements of the playbook relatively quickly and step in by the end of the season. He should be a significant upgrade on Purdy or Johnson if the 49ers choose to go that way, although Shanahan might not be comfortable with a new quarterback to his roster playing meaningful games in January.
What about quarterbacks from outside the NFL?
This is mostly a fun exercise as opposed to something realistic, but sure. The most experienced Shanahan quarterback out of the league is Matt Schaub, who retired after the 2020 season. The 41-year-old was still effective in spot duty for the Falcons in 2019, although he hasn't been a regular starter since throwing a string of pick-sixes for the Texans in 2013. If there's any veteran starter likely to get an unexpected call from Shanahan in the next two weeks, he seems to be the most plausible option.
Otherwise, many of the prominent veterans who are recently retired or otherwise out of the league would be major question marks. Alex Smith's miraculous comeback from a broken leg helped push the Commanders into the postseason in 2020, but he wasn't healthy enough to play in the postseason and subsequently retired. Fitzpatrick suffered a serious hip injury last season before retiring. Drew Brees struggled mightily with his arm strength and various injuries during his final season with the Saints in 2020. Ben Roethlisberger never seemed to fully recover from his 2019 elbow surgery before finishing his career with two limited seasons in Pittsburgh. It's unclear whether any of these guys are healthy enough to pass a physical, let alone in throwing shape or hope to play again.
A healthier option might be Philip Rivers, who was effective in his final season with the Colts in 2020. He retired after the season, but the longtime Chargers passer hinted in 2021 that he was staying in shape for a possible comeback and admitted this spring that he was wondering whether the Colts would call him after the Carson Wentz trade. Rivers has said he would only return to the Colts and subsequently suggested that his time as an NFL quarterback is over, so the chances of this comeback seem remote.
Colin Kaepernick is also healthy, but Shanahan cut the 35-year-old passer shortly after arriving to the organization in 2017. More recently active passers include Blake Bortles and Cam Newton, but there's no ideal fit or obvious replacement in the open market more likely to be coaxed out of retirement than Schaub.
What does this mean for the 49ers' starting job in 2023?
This injury makes it more likely Garoppolo leaves the organization after the season. While the 49ers were clearly moving on from Garoppolo and replacing him with Lance as the 2022 season began, the lack of a trade market following his shoulder surgery kept Jimmy G on the active roster. When Lance went down injured in September, San Francisco's inability to trade Garoppolo turned into a very fortunate circumstance.
Lance didn't look great in his brief foray under center, but most of it came in dismal conditions against the Bears. The organization isn't likely to give up on him after trading three first-round picks to acquire him before the 2021 draft, but if Garoppolo had led the 49ers to a Super Bowl for the second time, it's not impossible to imagine a scenario in which they kept Garoppolo on a new deal and traded Lance for draft picks.
As it stands, the last memory the 49ers will have of Garoppolo in uniform is seeing their oft-injured starter carted to the locker room. He is now 38-17 as the starter in San Francisco, but he has completed just one completely healthy season by the Bay and will finish this season having missed 30 of his 86 possible starts. A franchise tag is unlikely for Garoppolo in an offseason when pass-rusher Nick Bosa and Aiyuk are eligible for new deals. I'd be surprised if we saw Garoppolo play for the 49ers in 2023.
What's next for Garoppolo?
Garoppolo will still have a market in free agency, but there will be teams that shy away over concerns about his health. It's one thing to sign a veteran such as Kirk Cousins (or before him, Joe Flacco or Eli Manning) to a market-value deal when you can count on them being healthy for virtually every snap. It's another when you're signing a low-ceiling player with a track record of battling injuries, something Garoppolo has dealt with since his first run with the Patriots in 2014.
At the same time, Garoppolo offers a high floor when healthy, and his record with the 49ers will attract teams that think they can win with solid quarterback play. I would expect Garoppolo to land a multiyear deal to start for a team such as the Jets or Texans, both of whom have ties to Garoppolo's past, but there won't be as many suitors for him as there would have been after a healthy 2022 campaign. I'd still expect a three-year deal north of $100 million.
Of course, the market for 2022 quarterbacks is still extremely up in the air. Garoppolo could be the only marquee free agent available, or he could be joined by Tom Brady, Geno Smith and Daniel Jones. The Jets could be in the market or go back to Zach Wilson. The Texans could prefer to use their likely No. 1 overall pick on a quarterback. There's always a scenario in which Garoppolo isn't healthy in March, lingers in free agency until the summer and decides to go back to San Francisco as a backup on a one-year deal in a slightly different version of what happened in August.
How should we look back at the Garoppolo era in San Francisco?
Garoppolo has been one of the league's most polarizing and difficult to discuss players during his time with the 49ers. If you judge quarterbacks by wins and losses, he has been one of the best quarterbacks when healthy. If you look at efficiency metrics, he ranks much higher than most would suspect; his 8.3 yards per attempt since joining the 49ers in 2017 leads all quarterbacks over that time frame. The 31-year-old has been much better than his backups, especially in terms of winning.
And yet, at the same time, it would be naive to ignore Garoppolo's limitations and context. He often has been surrounded with superior playmakers and enjoyed the presence of Shanahan in the fold. No quarterback has benefited more from yards after catch over that time frame, with Garoppolo generating an average of 6.7 YAC, the most of any player. He contributes to that YAC when he makes accurate passes, but there are plenty of examples of his throws inhibiting movement after the catch because they've been thrown high, low or to the wrong spot. He also had a middling track record with interceptions, although his rate in 2022 before the injury was a career-low 1.3%.
For a quarterback with Garoppolo's record and statistics, it's clear Shanahan recognized those limitations. The playcaller was unwilling to press the issue with Garoppolo in Super Bowl LIV, and the points the Niners left on the board helped cost them a victory against the Chiefs. Garoppolo came within a yard on a deep shot to Emmanuel Sanders of winning the game for his team, and then within one drive of getting the Niners back to the Super Bowl last season. Shanahan signaled his true feelings by trading three first-round picks to the Dolphins for the pick used to acquire Lance and attempting to trade Garoppolo before the 2022 season began.
Garoppolo's tenure in San Francisco has been full of stops and starts, often owing to injuries. Here, in a season in which the Niners have a Super Bowl-caliber defense, some of the best playmakers in football and a clear path to a division title, it would have been fun to see Garoppolo continue delivering a career season in an unexpectedly active contract year. Instead, the 49ers will have to overcome another serious injury to their starting quarterback and try to win anyway.
Are there teams that benefit from this injury?
There's no joy in seeing any player get hurt, but it would be naive to pretend that the landscape in the NFC doesn't shift as a result of Garoppolo's injury. The 49ers are a much less imposing team now than they seemed a week ago. Here's who stands to benefit from Garoppolo's season ending:
The Seahawks are now in reasonable shape to win the NFC West. Seattle had lost two straight and trailed to the husk of the Rams at times Sunday, but a late victory kept Pete Carroll's team one game behind the 49ers. San Francisco owns the tiebreaker, but with five games to go, the Seahawks are positioned to pounce if the Purdy Niners slip up. The Cardinals are all but out of the race at 4-8 and would probably need to win out while the 49ers and Seahawks lose out to win the West, while the 3-9 Rams are playing out the string. ESPN's FPI gives the 49ers a 69.7% chance to win the division, while the Seahawks have a 30.3% chance.
The Commanders and Giants, who played to a tie in New Jersey on Sunday, might face easier competition in the wild-card round. Barring dramatic winning or losing streaks, the 4-seed in the NFC will be the winner of the NFC South (currently the Buccaneers), and the 5-seed will be the second-place team in the NFC East (currently the Cowboys).
The No. 3 vs. No. 6 matchup suddenly got a lot easier for the road team. With the 49ers expected to land that third spot, their most likely opponents would be the third-place team in the NFC East. The Commanders and Giants have their own flaws and questions at quarterback, but they would have been significant underdogs in a road game against the 49ers with Garoppolo under center. Those matchups would be much more competitive with Purdy in the fold against a fierce Commanders front four or a blitz-happy Giants defense.
If the 49ers do lose their lead in the West, the Seahawks would inherit the 3-seed and an easier matchup in the first round, given that they would play the Commanders, Giants or a compromised San Francisco team. The Seahawks could also end up as the 6-seed and like their chances in a rubber match with their division rivals.