Padecky: Once again, it’s Jimmy Garoppolo’s job to lose

As sentimentality in professional sports lasts about as long as a butterfly’s memory, imagine this test of that standard: Jimmy Garoppolo and the 49ers win the Super Bowl on Feb. 12, 2023. It’s good ol’ Jimmy G, the insurance policy, the guy out the door so many times in San Francisco he’s the Fed Ex driver picking up another load.

It’s good ol’ Jimmy G, now in the same Super Bowl sentence as Joe Montana and Steve Young. Jimmy G is the charismatic savior, now adored for his football skills as well as his good looks. By February Jimmy has eliminated his only relevant criticism: He no longer throws the sudden, inexplicable and confounding interception late in the fourth quarter. He now finishes, the closer, sealing the deal and his legacy.

Jimmy G is now the hot property, the golden calf being chased in the off-season by nearly every NFL team.

Do the 49ers keep him? An interesting parallel here: Trent Dilfer was signed as a backup quarterback by the Baltimore Ravens midway through the 2000 season. Dilfer started in the Super Bowl that year, won it, and did not re-sign with Baltimore, becoming the first and only Super Bowl-winning quarterback released after the season.

What will the 49ers do? They are committed to the future with Trey Lance. They sent away three high draft choices for him. But Garoppolo will capture Bay Area love and sonnets if he wins a Super Bowl. Quarterbacks from around here who win Super Bowls usually do.

But Lance, who suffered a broken right ankle Sunday, will have missed the entire 2022 season in recovery. Can the 49ers afford to wait another year to give him more time? After all, Lance is only 22.

Don’t assume the obvious. Not after Sunday. Not after Coach Mike Shanahan forgot Lance was a quarterback, not a running back.

“It’s a football play we believe in,” said Shanahan of Lance going off-tackle.

It’s a stupid, high-risk, football play. It’s a football play that creates unnecessary risk for The Franchise.

Other NFL teams do it, Shanahan said, sending quarterbacks on the run. Yes, they do, but they send them wide of the interior line. They send them away from the beef, the maulers like Seattle nose tackle Al Woods and his 335 pounds of muscled meat. They send their franchises away from the pile.

Truth to tell Lance has yet to show he’s a game-decider when he runs. Lance is thought of as someone who needs attention, not worries, by a defense. We have yet to find a comparison for him in the league. By a goodly margin, Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson is the most talented afoot. It would be unfair and unwise to compare Lance to Jackson.

It also would be unfair and unwise to think Lance’s injury Sunday was just one of those unlucky plays that happen in football. But why press your luck? Why not remember instead that if the 49ers make the playoffs, it would have been with Lance’s arm, not his feet? Lance’s injury deserves more examination than it’s-just-one-of-those-things that happens in football.

A quarterback with the most rushing attempts on a team is not just a casual statistic. A quarterback never should have more rushing attempts than a running back. But that’s what happened a week ago in Chicago. Lance rushed four more times than Jerry Wilson. Yes, it was raining and the ball was slippery like an eel and running felt like skateboarding. No matter. Let Wilson have all of the fun. To put Lance in that position as he is trying to learn the position is, here is that word again, stupid.

“Anytime a guy gets hurt,” Shanahan said, “I wish I didn’t call the play.”

That’s a comforting thought, the same as regretting ice skating after colliding with a fence. Maybe Shanahan can’t admit regret. How would that track with Lance in his hospital bed? How would that track with the 49ers themselves? In the NFL failure, either physical or mental, makes a target of the one responsible for such a blunder.

Shanahan has to inspire confidence. He has as little room for error as a linebacker who misses a tackle. Send the boys in there without doubts or gripes. Anything else and a coach loses his team.

These 49ers are a Super Bowl-talented team. There’s even some thought arising the 49ers have a better chance now with Garoppolo at quarterback. Garoppolo has been to the Super Bowl before. Lance’s biggest game? Against the James Madison Dukes in an NCAA Division 1 playoff game, although the Dukes had a fine year.

NFL owners, by and large, are as patient as a 4-year-old who just has been told it’s going to take a few more minutes to get that scoop of chocolate ice cream. To think it’s going to be another year before we can begin once again to evaluate Trey Lance, well, that’s torture for those in immediate need.

The immediate need in San Francisco right now is today, tomorrow and the next five months. If Jimmy Garoppolo fills that immediate need, if the man makes ‘em forget Trey Lance, if the 49ers fans remember September 18 as when it all began, my, oh my, imagine.

Imagine the start of 2023, when Trey Lance is the insurance policy.

To comment write to bobpadecky@gmail.com.