Insider: Jimmy Garoppolo 'has to be a live 49ers option for 2023'

There's yet another indication that Trey Lance isn't cemented as the starting quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers next September. 

For a mailbag posted on Monday, The Athletic's Tim Kawakami wrote that Jimmy Garoppolo "has to be a live 49ers option for 2023." Garoppolo agreed to stay with the Niners as a backup via a restructured deal this past summer and returned to the top of the depth chart after Lance went down with a season-ending ankle injury in Week 2. As things stand today, Garoppolo can hit free agency after the campaign. 

"Lance is no sure thing as a playoff-level quarterback in 2023, just like he wasn’t at the start of this season," Kawakami explained. "And this is basically the third entire season Lance has missed, at a very crucial development period for any young QB." 

The 49ers went all-in on this season when they acquired star running back Christian McCaffrey from the Carolina Panthers before the trade deadline. Kawakami notes that head coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch "will have some decisions to make" if Garoppolo leads the 49ers back to the postseason this January. 

"I don’t think Garoppolo would ever come back to the 49ers as the official backup to Lance, though," Kawakami added. "That happened once. It won’t happen again. If the 49ers and Garoppolo agree to keep this going into 2023, I think Lance would be considered the backup and I think there could be logical repercussions from that, too." 

Garoppolo and company entered the bye week at 4-4 following an impressive 31-14 win over the Los Angeles Rams on Oct. 30. San Francisco next faces the 5-3 Los Angeles Chargers Sunday night. 

Last week, NFL insider Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated linked Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady with the 49ers, in part because Brady grew up a fan of the club in California. Shanahan suggested in September that Lance would resume his QB1 duties "next year," but some within the NFL community clearly aren't convinced that's definitely the case as of this fall.