The when Bill Belichick gift-wrapped as a ready-made franchise savior. At the time of Garoppolo's Bay Area arrival, though, coach Kyle Shanahan was hardly set to proclaim his new quarterback a godsend. Although Shanahan had long harbored a of Garoppolo's potential, he was still clinging to hopes of a reunion with. In a Wednesday interview with ESPN's Golic and Wingo, general manager John Lynch revealed just how wide the Cousins-Garoppolo gap was in Shanahan's eyes before the took the league by storm in December. 'For Kyle, I think the thing I would tell people,' Lynch shared, 'is we made the trade and then there were some days that Kyle Shanahan was like, because I think everybody knows his master plan was to have come in eventually. 'I was proud of Kyle. Because I think he knew that this was the right thing for our franchise, and he didn't hesitate.
Kyle Michael Shanahan (born December 14, 1979) is an American football coach who is the current head coach and offensive coordinator of the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL). Michael Edward Shanahan (born August 24, 1952) is a former American football coach, best known as the head coach of the Denver Broncos of the National Football League (NFL) from 1995 to 2008.
But even then Jimmy had to really prove himself. I think it was really smart.
Kyle didn't play him right away. He waited until he had some semblance of an understanding of our scheme when he did put him in. And he put him in in a position to succeed.
And then I would tell you that Jimmy really impressed Kyle, to the point that he said, This is our guy.' It's not that Shanahan was a Garoppolo skeptic. In fact, the former Eastern Illinois star had a prominent role in the quarterback films Shanahan showed to scouts last offseason, prescribing the traits required to play in the new scheme. Still, Shanahan couldn't shake his visions of Cousins under center in San Francisco.
After rewarding his hotshot quarterback with a last month, Shanahan acknowledged to The MMQB's Albert Breer that the specter of Cousins hung over Garoppolo's early days in San Francisco. 'Yeah, of course, it was there,' Shanahan said.
And for anybody who knows how I feel about Kirk, I think this shows how I feel about Jimmy, the fact that we ended up doing this. I'm not a guy who's going to get excited and just go with the momentum, at all. I usually do the opposite, question it to make sure I'm absolutely confident, and not go with the momentum or the excitement.