Jimmy Garoppolo will unlikely be making a move to one of his former teams if he his released from the Las Vegas Raiders, Albert Breer has claimed.
The Las Vegas Raiders certainly put a lot of faith in Jimmy Garoppolo when they brought him in during free agency. Having moved on from the not-spectacular but better-than-average Derek Carr, they brought in the former New England Patriots and San Francisco 49ers quarterback on a deal that could reportedly pay him as much as $77.25m by the time he is done.
It’s a deal that is striking for two reasons. The first being that Garoppolo has never put up big numbers (leading him to earn the less-than-flattering ‘game manager’ moniker in some circles) and has struggled when the playoffs come around. The second being his rather worrying injury history, which according to reports could come back to haunt him.
As per Mike Florio on Pro Football Talk, Garoppolo’s contract with the Raiders contains an addendum and that “without it, Garoppolo would not pass the team’s physical “because of a preexisting medal and middle cuneiform and a fracture of the base of the second metatarsal in the Player’s left foot and that the Club would not enter into an NFL Player Contract with Player”. A situation that “underscores the possibility that Garoppolo might never play for the Raiders — and he might never get paid a penny by them.”
So it might be that if things go bad for Garoppolo quickly, he could be looking for a new team once again. Should that be the case, Albert Breer believes one team should be struck from contention at this early stage.
Jimmy Garoppolo not shipping back up to Boston
Writing in a mailbag column for SI.com, in response to a question about whether Garoppolo would be an option for the Patriots, Breer (who has been a prominent Patriots reporter in the past) seemed to rule out the chance pretty quickly, stating that both the theoretical injury and the issues it would cause behind the scenes would be too much for them to consider:
I don’t think so. Because the only way I see Garoppolo becoming available is if he reinjures his left foot badly enough for the Raiders to cut him. In which case it wouldn’t make sense for the Patriots to sign him, especially given how a quarterback signing might upset the apple cart in Foxborough.
It’s true the quarterback situation in New England isn’t great right now, especially with reports coming out about issues between Mac Jones and Bill Belichick, but as Breer points out, it wouldn’t make sense for them to bring him in right now.
Maybe they could next year if things don’t work out for Garoppolo in Las Vegas, or for Jones in New England and the Patriots want to bring in someone they know and can rely on, but for right now it seems the safe choice to steer clear.