49ers always planned to keep Jimmy Garoppolo?

Shortly after reports surfaced that the San Francisco 49ers acquired the No. 3 selection in the 2021 NFL Draft from the Miami Dolphins to pick a quarterback, ESPN's Adam Schefter explained the club had "no plans" to trade veteran Jimmy Garoppolo. 

According to David Bonilla of 49ers WebZone, general manager John Lynch told Colin Cowherd on Tuesday he was honest with Garoppolo about the team drafting a new signal-caller — eventually Trey Lance — but confirmed the intention was always to retain Garoppolo as a mentor and, likely, a starter for this fall. 

"…'But here's the good news, Jimmy. We don't want you to go anywhere,'" Lynch said about that particular conversation. "'We want you to be here, and our ownership has made the commitment that we can do that. We can fit it in our cap, and we think it's a good situation for you; probably not the one you ultimately want to hear. I'm sure you want to be the long-term guy. There's a flip side to that. You still could be.' Because he's going to have a chance to compete and earn that job, and we're just going to let that play out. But Jimmy's a really good football player."

A famous NFL mantra teaches that a team with two starting quarterbacks actually has none, but that hasn't always been the case. Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes are two Most Valuable Player Award winners who learned sitting behind veterans on depth charts, and both Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan may decide by the end of August Lance can benefit from watching Garoppolo work on Sundays for at least several months.