49ers Could Use Franchise Tag On QB Jimmy Garoppolo

49ers HC Kyle Shanahan said that the team is not in a rush to start recently acquired QB Jimmy Garoppolo and that his franchise tag cost would not be an issue towards retaining him for another season.

“He does not have to play (this season),” Shanahan said, via Eric Branch of the San Francisco Chronicle. “It’s not that we’re coming to this deadline and we’ve got to decide our future, ours and his, for both sides. We’ve got six games left and we’re going to have next year, also. I know you have to franchise a quarterback to keep him, but quarterbacks are expensive. And that is not that big of a deal to us.”

Though Shanahan went on to say that it would be great to re-sign Garoppolo to a long-term contract extension, he indicated that the team would like to continue observing him to determine if they should keep him around as their franchise quarterback.

“It would be great if it could work out that way (a long-term contract), but that’s just not the situation any of us are in,” Shanahan said. “So you want to play it out. That is the good thing about the franchise tag and that’s what, to me, made it an easier decision to trade for him at the time we did to where it’s – I don’t want to do anything very impulsive that could put our team at risk.”

San Francisco has made it clear that they won’t rush Garoppolo to play this season, despite the fact that he’s in line to be an unrestricted free agent next March.

Garoppolo, 25, is a former second-round pick of the Patriots back in 2014. He is entering the final year of his four-year, $3,483,898 rookie contract and stands to make a base salary of $820,077 to go along with a $75,000 workout bonus for the 2017 season.

Garoppolo is in line to be an unrestricted free agent next year.

In 2016, Garoppolo completed 68.3 percent of his passes for 502 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions for the Patriots over the course of six games.

We have him featured in our Top 25 – 2018 NFL Free Agents list.