49ers GM reveals what Bill Belichick said about Jimmy G before trade
Patriots coach Bill Belichick has a close circle of professional colleagues (dare we say “friends”?) with whom he shares information.
One of those people is former Buccaneers and Broncos safety John Lynch, who ended his career in New England.
In his prime, Lynch was definitely a Belichick-type player, hard-nosed, willing to play hurt and putting the team ahead of himself.
Now that Lynch is the general manager of the 49ers, he was in desperate need of a quarterback amid a 1-10 season.
He knew if he called New England about Jimmy Garoppolo, Belichick would give him the skinny.
Per Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated’s Monday Morning Quarterback: “Bill, beyond thinking this kid was a special football player, thought he was a special person,” Lynch said. “And he just said, ‘You’re gonna love the player, guys respond to him.’ I didn’t know what that meant. You think you know, but [we saw] that right away, even when he wasn’t playing.”
The 49ers responded, all right, to the tune of five consecutive wins to close out the season.
Now, after seeing the Jimmy G magic in full gear, Patriots fans are wondering whether San Francisco’s second-round pick in the upcoming draft was enough value for a franchise-type quarterback.
Teams like Cleveland were reportedly offering multiple picks last April before the draft.
During a radio interview with WEEI-FM in Boston, Belichick basically said it didn’t matter what the offers were back then, he wasn’t parting with Tom Brady’s insurance policy.
“There was no market to trade Jimmy in April on our end,” the coach said. “I don’t really care what the offer was, so I don’t even know what the offers were or would’ve been. There was no interest in our end in making the deal, so it didn’t really matter what the offer was or what the offer would’ve been. I don’t really know what they were because we didn’t entertain it. So I said I feel like we had the best depth at that position. probably of any team in the league — or at least we felt like we did. Maybe other teams that felt differently, I don’t know. But we had great depth at that position.
“It’s a tremendous situation to have two quarterbacks of the caliber that we’ve had for the past, call it 2.5 years when Jimmy was ready. Unfortunately it just wasn’t sustainable.”
Getting Garoppolo for a second-round pick was pretty much a no-brainer for Lynch and the Niners. Now comes the tough call — signing him to a long-term contract, or slapping him with the franchise tag to make next year a “prove it to us” season. Washington has employed that tactic for each of the past two years with Kirk Cousins.
On San Francisco’s website, Lynch did his best Belichick, not showing his hand.
“We want Jimmy to be a Niner for a long, long time,” Lynch said Tuesday. “That process is going to take place here. We’re eager to get that done, to have the opportunity. But, I think one thing that we really believe is that those things should take place between us and his representatives and not occur and transpire in the public. That’s the way we’re going to treat that. You have our assurances, and the fans do, that we’d like nothing more than to make him a Niner for a long, long time.”
One thing seems certain; Garoppolo is about to get paid. We’ll see if Lynch feels like he’s found his franchise quarterback of the future.
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