49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo will be staying with the 49ers, after slashing his 2022 pay by more than $19 million. There’s a lingering question as to why he didn’t just force his way out by showing up at the outset of camp and insisting on being included in practice -- practice at which he could have suffered a season-ending injury that would have put the team on the hook for his full $25.62 million salary.
“That just wasn’t the way I wanted to go,” Garoppolo said. “There was a thought of that at one point, trust me there was, but that came and went and I don’t know things just kind of kept falling into place. And I’m one of those people that I don’t really want to ruffle the feathers too much here and there and I kind of want to just go with the flow. And that’s kind of the way the training camp was going and I was happy with it. And like I said, things worked out and I’m happy now.”
As we’ve suggested on PFT Live, the 49ers knew that Garoppolo isn’t a fan o confrontation, and that the team used it against him. It was one of the key ingredients in the 49ers being able to get him to agree to reduce his base salary all the way to $6.5 million.
While, at this point, it’s a win-win for the 49ers and Garoppolo, it would have potentially been a bigger win for Garoppolo, if he’d forced his way out in late July. But he’s not wired that way, the 49ers knew it, and they used that knowledge to their advantage in order to get Garoppolo to choose to stay put.
