They had a chance to cut Jimmy Garoppolo before this season, but the 49ers decided to stick with him while Trey Lance learns from the sidelines.
You can’t deny Jimmy G’s record in the playoffs, but he has made some throws near the end of the past few games that will make any 49ers fan agree that it’s time to move on. San Francisco can cut Jimmy G with only $1.4M of dead money, and with the investment of an early 1st round pick, it’s an inevitable move for Trey Lance to be the 49ers' Week 1 starter next season.
If you’ve been paying attention to fantasy QBs over the last few years, it’s obvious that rushing QBs have the highest floor and upside… and Lance will provide both. Whether you think he’ll pan out to be a legit real-life QB, he’s going to get it done for fantasy more often than not.
The jury’s still out on Jalen Hurts as a real-life NFL QB, but he finished as the QB7 in FPPG. He was actually the 2nd most mathematically consistent fantasy QB behind Matthew Stafford this past season, and the biggest reason behind that was his rushing ability. In Kyle Shanahan’s system, Lance will shine.
In his first career game taking over an injured Jimmy G in Week 4, he had 20 fantasy points in one half.
He didn’t have a great game in his first career start in Week 5, but he saved his fantasy day with 89 yards rushing on 16 carries. He was the QB10 in his 2nd career start in Week 17, where he was able to produce mostly in the passing game.
He’ll now most likely have a full off-season getting all the reps, assuming Jimmy G is gone.
He has weapons, he has an offensive line, he has a scheme, and he has the legs.
My guess is that he’ll be a value in redraft (8th round or later), and those dynasty shares are going to start paying off.