Jimmy and the G's

Seaside Joe 1240: The Seahawks have crossed into territory where nobody else is going to enter the quarterback competition

Every time I see Jimmy Garoppolo’s face, I see a 17-year-old kid who hangs out at the skate park but he doesn’t know how to skate. He gets girls without trying, but that ultimately results in him not knowing anything about relationships and one day he’ll bring a date to his third son’s (from his second marriage) little league game. When he’s older, the son will not remember her name, he’ll only call her “the one who traded me my first puff of weed for a Bomb Pop.”

At college parties, Garoppolo would be the one who draws attention merely for attending, but he would politely decline every offer of a beer because “I don’t drink.” Little does he know that 20 years later, he will make up for lost drinking time. Sparkling eyes and half-dimpled when he smiles, Garoppolo can be charming when the moment calls… If football doesn’t work out, he could always sell seven-figure homes in the Chicago suburbs.

The one thing that doesn’t suit him is scornfulness and seriousness.

Every time he gets mad at his girlfriend-of-six-months for not taking him seriously as a guitarist, she breaks into a giggle that sets him off into anger. But his “I’M MAD!!!” face makes only evolves her reaction from a chuckle to a downright uproar, forcing him to storm off so he can be alone in the garage he transformed to his “artist’s temple.”

“She won’t be laughing when ‘Jimmy and the G’s’ is performing live on James Corden’s show one day,” he thinks to himself as he toys around on Kevin’s drum set. “Maybe I should try the drums instead. Guitar is stupid anyway. Kevin wouldn’t mind, I don’t think.” Kevin is a pushover. All of Jimmy’s friends are, it’s their one defining trait in common. Everybody just wants to please Jimmy.

Even when he’s 55, the looks have mostly faded, the pot belly from catchin’ up to drinking protrudes through a t-shirt that he bought at a Kings of Leon concert in 2011, his oldest son has a cannabis business and his youngest daughter hasn’t spoken to him since he forgot to pick her up from ballet in March of last year, and he’s got a yamaka-sized crop circle on his head where hair used to be, people will still be mesmerized around Jimmy. They’ll say, “Jimmy is a great guy. Hell of a darts player, too.”

Men will invite him on trips. Women will be intrigued by how little he seems to care about what they think of him. His nephews will say things like, “I want to be like Uncle Jimmy!” His sister-in-laws will look say, “No, you don’t.” Then turn to their husbands and say, “This is your fault.”

Jimmy Garoppolo…that gray area between potential and productivity. Between success and underachieving. Between being an inspiration or a cautionary tale.

And not a quarterback who will be starting for the Seattle Seahawks any time soon.

Everybody’s got a story to tell. For some, people say stuff like “Your life could be a movie.” I was wondering that about Garoppolo on Tuesday but despite being an NFL quarterback for eight years, reaching two NFC Championships, one Super Bowl, and dating a porn star, I can’t fathom being interested in a two-hour depiction of his life.

I know the starting point: Kid who loves football gets no offers coming out of high school, goes to Eastern Illinois and defies the odds, becomes a backup to the greatest quarterback of all-time, add in a couple of scenes with background actors cast as “TMZ paparazzi.” But there is no end to this movie.

That’s Garoppolo’s entire career up to now, where every thread eventually leads to the question, “Yeah, but so what?”

Garoppolo was drafted by the Patriots, but so what? He didn’t turn out to be Tom Brady’s heir to anything.

Garoppolo was traded to the 49ers, went 5-0 in his audition, and signed the biggest contract in NFL history after the season. So what? Even if the 49ers had two successful years during the two campaigns that Garoppolo was healthy, nobody gives him any credit for his part in it.

Garoppolo was nearly a Super Bowl champion three years ago, but that’s not nearly good enough. Garoppolo led the NFL in net yards per pass attempt last season and was playing later in the year than Brady, Josh Allen, Russell Wilson, and Aaron Rodgers. But so what? Months later, we’ve found out that not a single franchise in the league views Garoppolo as a starter.

Therefore, as of July 28, 2022, there’s only one thing left to call Jimmy G: A backup quarterback. Again.

Shoulder ailments didn’t stop Baker Mayfield from getting to compete to start with the Panthers. Human rights issues didn’t stop the Browns from trading for Deshaun Watson and signing him to the biggest guaranteed deal in NFL history.

So it’s not recovering from a surgery that nobody doesn’t expect him to recover from, or even his $24 million salary that has kept Jimmy Garoppolo from changing teams this offseason. As with Mayfield, Watson, and Matt Ryan, there is always a way to manage a contract that seems unmanageable.

It’s not even necessarily about how Garoppolo plays either. In a world where Marcus Mariota, Mitch Trubisky, Davis Mills, Daniel Jones, and Jared Goff are all starting, while Sam Darnold, Geno Smith, and Drew Lock are battling to be a QB1, Garoppolo is more talented than a handful of current NFL starters. It’s more about how Garoppolo carries himself.

Ask Jimmy Garoppolo to “put on his game face” and frankly, I don’t buy it.

All I see is the care-free himbo who doesn’t seem to understand how he got this far, like Jon Hamm’s character on 30 Rock.

On Wednesday, I received yet another text that read like a lot of other texts I got this summer, “So, is Jimmy Garoppolo going to the Seahawks?” Remove “Jimmy Garoppolo” and fill-in-the-blank with Baker Mayfield, Malik Willis, Matt Ryan, Deshaun Watson, Colin Kaepernick, etc. Funny, I’ve never once gotten this text: “So, is Drew Lock going to start for the Seahawks?”

You know, that 25-year-old quarterback who the Seahawks actually did trade for?

In this case, the player is more understandable than the predecessors, but the timing couldn’t be worse. As far back as March, I’ve been writing that yes, Jimmy G is a realistic possibility for Seattle’s quarterback competition. He has started 43 times in the last three seasons, six of those being playoff games (and he threw an interception in all but one of those games, the exception being an eight-attempt win over the Packers), and he’s in a contract situation that allows any team to easily say “Goodbye” at the end of the year.

That is more realistic to me than any of the options where “hope” might be in the equation. The only thing I hope for the Seahawks is that they competitively set themselves up to draft a franchise quarterback in 2023.

All that being said, it is now too late for Jimmy Garoppolo to start for any team other than the 49ers in 2022, and the 49ers are steadfast in their belief that Trey Lance is San Francisco’s starting quarterback. Which, for the 32nd time, makes Garoppolo a current NFL backup quarterback. That’s the mindset we must take with any talk about Jimmy G: He’s lower on a depth chart than Trey Lance. He’s got less of a chance to start for a team in Week 1 than Mason Rudolph does with the Steelers. He’s as much of a backup right now as Joe Flacco, Teddy Bridgewater, Brandon Allen, Nick Foles, and Desmond Ridder.

Adam Schefter @AdamSchefter

John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan met this morning with Jimmy Garoppolo. The three men talked, and after, Shanahan told reporters, “We have moved on to Trey.”

Jacoby Brissett will probably start in Week 1. Jimmy Garoppolo almost certainly won’t.

That—THAT is the Hollywood story. A starting quarterback who had a 17-7 fourth quarter lead in the NFC Championship on January 30, 2022, is now a backup quarterback without a franchise on July 28, 2022.

I wouldn’t spend $18.57 to see that biopic in theaters. Not even if you hired Baz Luhrmann to “music the hell out of this, if you could.” It may not even get a one-season greenlight from Netflix, the streamer that plays so fast and loose with content that they give out spec deals to mailroom employees as Christmas bonuses.

But it is interesting to see that as of right now, the Seahawks are going to either start Drew Lock or Geno Smith, and the guy who went 33-14 as the starting quarterback on the 49ers—a presently healthy player at the most important position in team sports—is stuck between his $24 million base salary (way too much for him to ask for a release) and the fact that none of the other 31 teams want to trade for him. While his own team has inevitably moved onto the player who they traded three first round picks to acquire.

Either Lock or Smith will be starting for Seattle in Week 1. May the “Is (the most notable quarterback on the block at this time) going to the Seahawks?” texts now retire.

Gregg Bell @gbellseattle

Geno Smith, Drew Lock, Jacob Eason throwing to tight ends on first day of training camp. As here, Smith, Lock since spring have been getting about 2 throws to receivers for every 1 Eason gets. Pete Carroll says Eason is there if the Seahawks need him. ⁦⁦@thenewstribune⁩

And to all those living the charmed life, remember to be grateful for what you have, not what you’ve lost.