NBC Sports’ Chris Simms joins 49ers Talk hosts Matt Maiocco and Jennifer Lee Chan from Super Bowl Radio Row in Arizona to pinpoint potential suitors for free agent quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.
Jimmy Garoppolo’s time with the 49ers appears to be over.
The veteran quarterback will become a free agent and with various teams across the NFL needing a signal caller, there will be a market for Garoppolo.
NBC Sports’ Chris Simms joined NBC Sports Bay Area’s Matt Maiocco and Jennifer Lee Chan on “49ers Talk” from Super Bowl LVII's Radio Row in Phoenix, where he discussed which teams might be interested in the 31-year-old.
“It’s interesting. I look at places like the [Carolina] Panthers and the [Indianapolis] Colts, who need quarterbacks," Simms said. "Are the Colts really going to do the Jimmy Garoppolo thing after they’ve been burned by the one-year veteran quarterback thing for four years in a row here, basically. So I don’t imagine them doing that. I don’t know.
“I just feel like that’s a dicey situation for them. If that doesn’t work out, their heads are going to be on the chopping block, and they’re back like, 'Well, how many times can we make this mistake?' Frank Reich in Carolina, is he going to want to do that? I don’t know. He just got burned by that same conversation.
"Houston [Texans], I look at that; [New York] Jets, I think I could certainly see a possibility there. I think those are the two that probably jump out to me more than the most.”
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Garoppolo frequently has been linked to the Jets, as NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport also believes returning to the AFC East makes sense.
Zach Wilson’s tenure in New York might be coming to an end and Jets coach Robert Saleh, who was San Francisco's defensive coordinator from 2017 to 2020, is familiar with Garoppolo. As a result, the potential move makes sense for both sides.
“A couple spots that stand out to me, obviously the [New York] Jets,” Rapoport said. “And I know they don’t run exactly his system -- like [coach] Mike LaFleur is not there, that would’ve been easy -- that would’ve made some sense. But there’s still a lot of similarities, [coach] Nathaniel Hackett will be there.
"Of course, there are similarities between the two systems. The Jets make sense.”
RELATED: 49ers should re-sign Jimmy Garoppolo as backup QB, Ryan Leaf believes
Any team that decides to sign Garoppolo will bring in a quarterback with Super Bowl experience to lead their squad for the 2023 NFL season.
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