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Jimmy Garoppolo Does Not Appear Close to Returning

And why would he want to play again for the 49ers?

Grant Cohn

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SANTA CLARA -- Jimmy Garoppolo made a brief appearance in the 49ers locker room on Wednesday.

He rolled to his locker on a knee scooter, which allows him to wheel around the facility without putting any weight on his broken foot. Then he wheeled out 15 seconds later. There was no cast on his foot, but he still couldn't walk on it.

"He just got the hard cast off, so he's not able to move around and do stuff yet," head coach Kyle Shanahan said. "They're still in the training-room processes, not out on the field or anything, so not much has changed.

Last week, Fox's Jay Glazer reported that the 49ers are holding out hope that Jimmy Garoppolo will be able to return at some point in the playoffs, presumably as a backup for Brock Purdy, who's undefeated. But from the looks of Garoppolo today, his return seems highly unlikely. If he can't put weight on his foot now, when will he be back in football shape?

And why would he want to play again for the 49ers? If he plays and gets injured, he will lose big bucks in the upcoming free agency. It's in his interest not to play, just as it's in Derek Carr's interest not to play, because the Raiders want to trade him this offseason and they need to keep him healthy. That's why Carr is done for the season.

I'm guessing Garoppolo is done for the season as well, which would be for the best. He needs a new start somewhere. Keeping him around as a backup would be a distraction the 49ers don't need.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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