Kawakami: Kyle Shanahan’s 49ers QB apology tour is over, thanks to Jimmy Garoppolo

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Let’s credit Jimmy Garoppolo one last time for injecting a zap or two of kinetic energy to the peppy proceedings around 49ers HQ on Wednesday.
This time, Garoppolo did it from afar, since, of course, he’s actually a member of the Raiders now, not the 49ers. But he still can rev up his old team when it’s needed.
And it definitely felt like the 49ers’ leaders were a little droopy last week, dealing with the emotions and after-effects of admitting the Trey Lance acquisition was a failure by trading him to Dallas, the prolonged negotiations with Nick Bosa and the general anxieties of cutdown day earlier this week.
But judging by Kyle Shanahan’s hyper-alert body language and snappy repertoire and John Lynch’s genial directness from the podium on Wednesday, the 49ers’ moody days are over. They’re done with their Lance public sheepishness and they’re happy that Lance seems happy in Dallas now. They’re committed to Brock Purdy, they’re comfortable with Sam Darnold and Brandon Allen as his backups, and if anybody wants to bark at them for how they got here, Shanahan is ready to fire right back.
So yes, I think Garoppolo’s not-so-cryptic recent comment about all the 49ers’ QB machinations the last few years absolutely did perk up the 49ers.
“Been a lot of weird situations over there in San Francisco,” Garoppolo told Sports Illustrated earlier this week. “I’ll just leave it at that.”
I asked Shanahan if he paid attention to Lance’s first comments from Texas and Garoppolo’s comment, too.
“I did see Trey,” Shanahan said. “I was happy watching him, actually, while I was eating lunch, with his press conference in Dallas, and Trey is as real as it gets, and that’s how he talks in here. That’s how he is every day. So it’s cool to see him handle that the right way, and he did seem genuinely kind of happy, and I feel he’s in a good position to move on and do better there.
“Jimmy, the comments are the comments, I’m really not concerned about his comments.”
Like Garoppolo before him, Shanahan on Wednesday wasn’t even trying to hide that there’s been a break in their relationship and that maybe the relationship wasn’t ever particularly great, anyway. It makes sense that Garoppolo, gone for months, was the one still irritating Shanahan and not Lance, gone for just days.
Brock Purdy, the 49ers and the 'weird situation' with so much riding on it
Do you feel any relief, Kyle, that the period of QB instability, when you changed the position multiple times, could be over now?
“The era of changing is, when we got here (in 2017), we waited 10 weeks and made a trade for (Garoppolo), played five games and then we made him the highest-paid quarterback of all time at the time,” Shanahan said. “Then he played two of the next five years and did really good in those two years. His injuries for three of those five years were legit. It was rough on him, rough on us. Then we made a move to go to a younger quarterback, and that’s what we did. We thought he’d be ready in two years and he wasn’t. And now we have a different younger quarterback. So that’s the situation.”
NBC Sports Bay Area’s Matt Maiocco followed up by asking if he agreed with Garoppolo’s “weird” characterization.
“I think anytime you trade up to the third pick in the draft and it doesn’t work out, that’s a weird situation, but that is the situation,” Shanahan said. “So that’s what happened. I don’t think it’s that weird. It’s unusual that it doesn’t work out, but I wouldn’t think that’s weird. I think that’s unusual. What do you think?”
Well, there was Garoppolo saying goodbye to the team and the Bay Area after the 2021 season and then not getting traded or released and him throwing on a side field during the 2022 training camp, being re-signed right before the season, and that’s just a part of it.
“Do you remember why that happened?” Shanahan said.
It’s been unique, Maiocco said.
“I agree, it’s been unique,” Shanahan said.
Classic Shanahan back-and-forth, I’d say. I could write 10,000 words on the meaning of Shanahan’s answer here, but I’m determined (for once) to keep this under that total. For now, the conclusion is that Shanahan was at a regular-season level of liveliness on Wednesday. Combined with Lynch’s appearance about 20 minutes later, it was all good-natured. But there were messages sent and I’m sure messages received.
Again, I think it’s natural for the 49ers’ leaders to have some tension these days. They still don’t know if and when Bosa will sign a new mega-deal and report to camp. It might be in time for the Sept. 10 opener in Pittsburgh, it might not.
“You guys know how we feel about Nick, and we all know how good of a player he is,” Shanahan said. “So hopefully we can come to terms soon and get him here as fast as possible.”
Lynch was as clear as possible when asked if they might trade Bosa if this keeps going: “No. Real simple.”
Meanwhile, the 49ers might not have been anxious about Purdy doing a scheduled “de-load” on Tuesday by cutting back on his throwing, but I’m sure Shanahan and Lynch felt pretty good watching Purdy sling around a few fastballs in practice on Wednesday. They might sound unworried about their kicking situation with rookie Jake Moody nursing a minor injury (after a shaky preseason) and no healthy kicker on the roster yet, but that can’t be fun for a head coach who hates to worry about his special teams.
There are always worries going into any season. The roster has to be set. Some things don’t quite work out. But the 49ers still sketch out as one of the strongest teams in the league. And yes, it was time for Shanahan and Lynch to sound excited and sound a little edgy.
The apology tour is over. The 49ers were back sounding like themselves again. And they had Jimmy Garoppolo to thank for it.
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