Jimmy Garoppolo is the starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, even though the front office and coaching staff seem to favor Trey Lance more and more by the day. Perhaps Lance is further along in his development than San Francisco initially thought, allowing the franchise to hand over the reins to the No. 3 overall pick sooner rather than later.
Regardless of what the 49ers coaching staff says about Garoppolo, it appears the quarterback is preparing to be taken off the field at some point. Garoppolo has reached out to Drew Brees on the potential of playing in a two quarterback system -- similar to what Brees experienced the past few seasons with Taysom Hill in New Orleans.
"It's happened a little bit in training camp just with some of the different types of things we're doing with Trey," Garoppolo admitted to reporters Wednesday, via the Mercury News. "But yeah, whenever I'm out there, I'll be ready to roll. It's just one of those things, it is what it is."
What advice did Brees give Garoppolo? That's what the 49ers quarterback failed to mention, although it had something to do with getting taken off the field for Lance.
"I'll keep that between me and him, but just kind of a stay ready type of thing," Garoppolo said. "Yeah, it's a different type of flow to the game. As a quarterback you're used to being out there the whole time. And so, it's just something that you've just got to get reps at and get used to it."
"It's a thing that I wasn't really used to, I guess you could say. Just the in and out part of it. So, I was trying to pick his brain, how he handled that. He'd come out for a play or two and then go back in, how that all works."
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49ers general manager John Lynch has been keeping the team's plans with Lance under wraps, only revealing Garoppolo is the starting quarterback. Whether Garoppolo takes all the snaps is the question that needs to be answered.
With a player of Lance's talent, the 49ers are going to have a hard time taking him off the field.
"If we are in a situation like that, yes, it's difficult to prepare for," Lynch said on the Murph & Mac show on KNBR 104.5 FM Friday, via David Bonilla of 49ers WebZone. "We haven't shown a lot in the preseason, as well, in terms of the things we can do with both Trey and Jimmy. But that's not only for us. That's league-wide. You really don't know, going into the first couple of games, what you're going to see.
"But yeah, that is something that we kind of are looking forward to, the amount of time that people are going to have to put in, preparing for each quarterback."
The 49ers appear to have something up their sleeve with both their quarterbacks. The rest of the league will find out come Week 1.
