Will the 49ers Trade Jimmy Garoppolo to the Browns?

The Browns actually might be the only logical trade destination left.

Grant Cohn | Jun 13, 2022

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San Francisco 49ers

Bear with me.

Yes, the Browns traded for Deshaun Watson and gave him a fully-guaranteed $230 million contract this offseason. But they still might be in the quarterback market, and they might be the only team that would consider trading for Jimmy Garoppolo.

Watson is facing two dozen lawsuits, which means the NFL could suspend him for part or all of the upcoming season -- the league hasn't decided yet. If the league suspends him for the entire season, the Browns would be in a tough spot. They probably would like to play Baker Mayfield at quarterback for one more season, but he requested a trade. "The relationship is too far gone to mend," he said.

So if Watson can't play, and Mayfield won't play, the Browns would have to start Jacoby Brissett at quarterback for an entire season, and his career win-loss record is 14-23. Or they could trade for Garoppolo.

The Browns currently have more than $42 million in cap space, so they can afford Garoppolo. And they don't need to sign him to an extension, because they wouldn't want him long term, because he would be a one-year stop gap until Watson returns.

The Browns actually might be the only logical trade destination left for Garoppolo. But again, before they'd be interested, the NFL probably would have to suspend Watson for the entire upcoming season, which might not happen, and Mayfield would have to sit out the entire upcoming season, which also might not happen.

I still think the 49ers will end up releasing Garoppolo.

Stay tuned.

Published Jun 13, 2022

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.