Jimmy Garoppolo 'took a while to process everything' after 49ers traded up for No. 3 pick

With organized team activities underway and Jimmy Garoppolo back on the field with his San Francisco 49ers, all appears well and good with his ankle, which hampered him to the point of ending the 2020 season on injured reserve.

But how’s Garoppolo’s psyche after San Francisco selected North Dakota State quarterback Trey Lance with the No. 3 pick of the 2021 NFL Draft?

Garoppolo is in “attack” mode, so to speak, as he stated Tuesday that he realizes he cannot change the current circumstances, but can make the best of them by putting his best foot and arm forward.

“If you start thinking about all those things, especially as a quarterback, you’re gonna be in some trouble,” Garoppolo said Tuesday when he was asked about having understandably hard feelings regarding the situation. “I got enough things to worry about just with the offense and things like that, trying to improve things here and there. At the end of the day, we’re here playing football. And so that’s what I love to do. I love to go out there, be with the guys, win football games, I mean that’s what I do. It’s one of those things, the situation is what it is, it’s not changing. So you just try to make the best of it. The way I do that is I try to attack each day and just try to put my best foot forward.”

The ankle that hobbled Garoppolo last season “feels great,” the quarterback said.

“Really hasn’t been a bother since I can’t remember when,” he added.

Over the last three seasons, though, Garoppolo has bothered by injuries aplenty and played in only a combined 25 games. When he played in all 16 regular-season tilts in 2019, Garoppolo helped the 49ers to a Super Bowl berth, but when he missed 13 in 2018 and 10 last season, San Francisco didn’t get a ticket to the postseason dance.

While injury troubles aren’t the only perceived reason for the 49ers drafting Lance to presumably supplant Garoppolo, they have been a glaring issue.

Thus, when the 49ers traded up in March for the third overall pick in the draft, Garoppolo knew along with the rest of the NFL world a change was on the horizon and he was admittedly upset.

“When it initially happened, there’s a million emotions that go on throughout your head. You think of all the possible scenarios and things like that. But, at the end of the day I want to play football, I want to go out there and win games – it’s what I do,” Garoppolo said. “It wasn’t anything too crazy. It took a while to process everything. But, once I did, it was just, ‘Go out there and ball.’ You just gotta attack it. The NFL’s a crazy business, things happen, but you just gotta attack it day by day and make the best of it.”

Ultimately, when Garoppolo’s been in the lineup, the 49ers have won, with the former Patriots QB going 22-8 as the 49ers starting QB. Nonetheless, Garoppolo was never the top option during the Niners’ NFC championship run and that coupled with his injury ills have made the addition of Lance hardly surprising.

Still, many were likely surprised that Garoppolo was one of the first people to reach out to Lance to congratulate him after he was picked third as Jimmy G did with a text.

“I just wanted to tell him congratulations, you’ve worked hard to get here and everything, and just start off on the right foot,” Garoppolo said. “It’s not every day you get drafted in the NFL, so I hope he enjoyed it.”

Now, Garoppolo and Lance are out on the field together.

The incumbent starter believes a relationship will develop organically over time with his presumed successor.

“Trey’s real cool. We’ve had a great relationship so far. All the QBs, we’ve got a big QB room right now. It’s a good group of guys. Fun to be around,” Garoppolo said. “It’s kind of one of those things. I don’t want to do anything out of the ordinary, do something that’s not me. I try to treat it just like I normally would with anybody else. Just go about my business, just be myself. And let the cards fall as they may – or let the chips fall as they may.

“The relationship between me and Trey, I think that’ll just happen naturally. It’s not something that you want to force too much. You don’t want to, I don’t know, make it fake. Things’ll happen, that stuff takes time. I think it’s one of those situations where you don’t want to go out of your normalcy and do something that’s not you. So I just let things happen and take it from there.”

As of Tuesday, Garoppolo’s ankle’s feeling fine and by his account he’s taking on the 49ers’ new quarterback situation in stride, because, frankly, he has no other choice.

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