Nick Wagoner, ESPN Staff Writer 6y

'Encouraged' 49ers still in no rush regarding Jimmy Garoppolo's contract

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Standing at the podium only about a half-hour after leading the San Francisco 49ers to their second consecutive win, quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo was asked if he is looking forward to making his first start in front of the home fans this week against the Tennessee Titans.

Garoppolo briefly paused and then, with a grin on his face, feigned ignorance.

"I mean, I don't know," Garoppolo said. "We'll find out as tomorrow comes."

Pressed further and told he would certainly be starting against the Titans, Garoppolo stuck to the bit.

"Am I?" Garoppolo said. "Well, we'll see what happens this weekend. That's on [coach] Kyle [Shanahan]."

One day later, Shanahan got in on the joke when asked whether Garoppolo would indeed be starting again this week.

"Yeah, I'm going to keep Tennessee guessing also," Shanahan said. "So they'll find out on Sunday kickoff."

Finally, after some impressive commitment to the gag, Shanahan relented.

"No, I think he knows the answer," Shanahan said. "So I think he's just playing along with it, similar to how I am also."

Garoppolo will make his third start with the 49ers on Sunday, and yes, it will be his first start as a Niner in front of the fans at Levi's Stadium. It's safe to expect a bigger turnout than the 49ers have seen in weeks -- or perhaps all season -- with fans curious to see the potential franchise quarterback.

There is still one giant issue looming over Garoppolo and the Niners: What will the team do about Garoppolo's pending free agency?

General manager John Lynch and Shanahan's stock answer all along has been that the Niners are not in a rush to get something done and will let this season play out before assessing things in the offseason and acting accordingly. Shanahan has even gone so far as to openly acknowledge that the most likely outcome would be using the franchise tag on Garoppolo to ensure that he is with the Niners in 2018 and buy more time for the sides to get acquainted and then hammer out a long-term contract.

Of course, all of that came before Garoppolo started two road games and led the 49ers to victories in both, marking the first time San Francisco had won two in a row since 2014. Has Garoppolo's performance altered the sense of urgency to sign him? It doesn't sound like it.

"For me, personally, it doesn't impact anything," Shanahan said. "That's what I was trying to explain. I thought it was so neat about the situation that I didn't feel that, because of that option, that we had to see something here or there, and we had to do all this stuff. It's been able for us to just try to do things the right way, put him in when we thought he was ready to, not put any pressure on him where he has to do all this to show something. Obviously, we're very encouraged with how these two games have been. We'll see what happens here in the offseason when we get together and can assess everything. I definitely don't think that's something he's thinking about at this point, and it's definitely not something I'm thinking about either."

Is that to say Shanahan isn't expecting a long-term contract to be done with Garoppolo before the end of the season?

"Yeah, I would not be anticipating that," Shanahan said.

Although there's certainly no need to rush into anything for Garoppolo or the Niners, it's hard to ignore the way he has energized the franchise since his arrival and especially since he took over as the starter a couple of weeks ago. Shanahan has long maintained that he didn't have any benchmarks he wanted to see from Garoppolo to decide how he fits moving forward.

As Shanahan has pointed out multiple times, Garoppolo won't have anything close to a full grasp of the offense until he gets a full offseason in Shanahan's scheme. That makes what Garoppolo has done the past two weeks even more impressive and all the more reason for outside observers to begin clamoring for the Niners to get Garoppolo locked in long-term sooner than later.

Alas, even if that isn't in the cards over the next few weeks, Shanahan isn't afraid to admit that Garoppolo is making a strong impression and he is looking forward to seeing how the QB does the final three games.

"We learn something every time we play with him," Shanahan said. "Each snap you get. It's nice to have film, two games now, to go off of. It will be nice to have more. We're still learning and will continue to learn throughout the year. We will into this offseason and next year also. I think we protected him very well versus Chicago. Didn't get many blitz looks. Just worked out to be a very clean game. This game was a lot different. We kind of had an idea of that going into it. We definitely were anticipating it to be more like that. It was the first time that we've had Jimmy where he's been under duress like that, and I thought he handled it very well."

For as well as Shanahan and Garoppolo handled their "will he or won't he" joke about starting this week, Garoppolo's favorite target wasn't so amused.

"I don't see why he wouldn't [start]," receiver Marquise Goodwin said. "He better be out there. For sure."

Goodwin was talking about Sunday against the Titans, but it's safe to assume he would hope for a similar setup for years to come.

^ Back to Top ^