Lions Flagship Radio Debates Trading for Jimmy Garoppolo
The Detroit Lions will go into training camp with a quarterbacks room consisting of starter Jared Goff and backups David Blough and Tim Boyle.
It's far from a deep room, and there are also questions regarding Goff's viability as a No. 1 quarterback.
It's led to some discussion about the Lions looking to the trade market for an upgrade at the position.
One name that has been bandied about lately is San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.
Garoppolo, who led the 49ers to the NFC Championship Game a season ago, has been the subject of trade rumors all offseason long. And, it's been due to the fact that there has been a heavy amount of speculation that Kyle Shanahan and San Francisco would like to transition to second-year pro Trey Lance under center.
Garoppolo was viewed by many pundits as the 49ers' stopgap option at quarterback last season. Meanwhile, Lance, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, was able to use the year to get ready to take over the former New England Patriots quarterback's job.
Now, the Garoppolo trade speculation has spread to the Detroit radio airwaves, where 97.1 The Ticket's Rico Beard and Jeff Riger discussed on "The Valenti Show with Rico Beard" Thursday the viability of Lions general manager Brad Holmes pulling off a trade for the veteran passer.
Jeff Hanisch, USA TODAY Sports
"If you're Detroit, apparently they're going all in. This team is, they're not ready to tank. They're going to try to win games, and if that's the case, embrace it," Beard expressed, regarding the possibility of Detroit trading for Garoppolo. "It costs you a future sixth-round pick, a guy who's not going to make the team anyway, to bring in a quality backup quarterback."
If a deal for Garoppolo is struck, it will lead to a pricey quarterbacks room for Detroit.
The Eastern Illinois product is set to earn a base salary of $24.2 million in 2022, to go along with a cap hit of $26.95 million. Meanwhile, Goff's cap hit will be $31.15 million this upcoming season, to go along with an exorbitant dead-cap hit of $41.15M.
While that is a lot of money tied up between two quarterbacks, Garoppolo, as Riger mentioned, is scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent at season's end. Additionally, Goff's dead-cap hit decreases significantly to $10M in 2023, making it more feasible for the Lions to find a trade partner for him next offseason.
"It's for one year. The money's not being spent on anybody else. It comes off the books next year, because 'Jimmy G' is going to be a free agent, an unrestricted free agent," Riger said. "And, Jared Goff, you can dump without the cap hit after next year, too. So, in a perfect world, both quarterbacks suck, and you get the quarterback of your choice in the draft. Or maybe one of them, I know it's crazy to seem, (but) maybe one of them's good."
