The 49ers will be in Charlotte to face the Panthers on Sunday and their defense will tangle with quarterback Baker Mayfield, but there was a point this offseason where it looked like a more familiar face had a chance to be running the Carolina offense.
Before Jimmy Garoppolo signed a reworked contract with the Niners late in the summer, the expectation was that they were going to trade him to another team. The Panthers were believed to be a possible landing spot and Garoppolo confirmed that when asked about the Panthers’ level of interest during a Friday media session.
“I think we were advancing with a couple different teams,” Garoppolo said, via 49ersWebzone.com. “Nothing obviously came to fruition. Yeah, they were top of the list I would say — one of the top couple.”
Garoppolo’s shoulder surgery helped dry up the market for a trade and everyone with the 49ers is now happy that it did because it meant they could turn to Garoppolo after Trey Lance’s season-ending ankle injury. There’s less enthusiasm about how things played out for the Panthers and a loss to the 49ers would push things closer to crisis mode in Carolina.