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The 49ers Nearly Traded Jimmy Garoppolo to the Washington Commanders for Two Picks

This report makes you wonder a couple things.
Grant Cohn|
The 49ers Nearly Traded Jimmy Garoppolo to the Washington Commanders for Two Picks
The 49ers Nearly Traded Jimmy Garoppolo to the Washington Commanders for Two Picks

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers insisted all offseason that at least one team was willing to trade for Jimmy Garoppolo before he had unexpected shoulder surgery. Apparently, they were telling the truth.

The 49ers and the Washington Commanders had a deal in place that would send Garoppolo to Washington in exchange for two draft picks, according to ESPN's Adam Schefter, who did not report what those draft picks would have been. The parameters of this potential place were put in place during the Scouting Combine before either team new Garoppolo would have shoulder surgery. Then that news killed the deal.

This report makes you wonder a couple things.

One, did Garoppolo have shoulder surgery to sabotage the trade to Washington? Is it possible he didn't want to play out the final season of his contract in Washington? Is it possible he didn't want to join that controversial franchise? You wonder.

Two, did Kyle Shanahan try to trade Garoppolo to Washington in particular to spite him? We know Shanahan has a bad history with that franchise -- Dan Snyder ran him and Mike Shanahan out of town. Kyle never has had a complimentary word to say about the Commanders. And he rescued Trent Williams from that team a few years ago almost like Williams was a refugee.

I'm not saying Shanahan hates Garoppolo, and I'm guessing the 49ers would have traded Garoppolo to any team that was interested in him. But it's interesting how weird the relationship between him and Shanahan has gotten since the 49ers named Lance the starting quarterback and put Garoppolo on the trade block. Now Garoppolo is the starting quarterback again, and he gives the 49ers their only chance to return to the playoffs this season.

Good thing they didn't trade him to Washington.

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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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