The Jimmy Garoppolo saga grows ever stranger, not just by the day, but by the minute. 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan initially termed Garoppolo’s thumb injury a sprain and was adamant about that categorization. After that assessment, national reporters Ian Rapoport and Adam Schefter reported that it was a tear, which chipped a bone in Garoppolo’s right thumb.
Shanahan’s response to questions about those reports were that the chipped bone was essentially irrelevant and that it is technically a grade three thumb sprain.
According to local Bay Area Doctor Nirav Pandya, a grade three sprain is a complete tear of the ligament.
Now we are here, with Trey Lance starting against the Houston Texans. But per Schefter, the 49ers are “optimistic” Garoppolo can start against the Rams in the final game of the season.
That expectation comes for a quarterback who the 49ers made clear at the start of the season they would like to move on from, and who has historically played poorly when returning from injuries, especially prematurely. This would certainly seem like a, er, swift return.
Per Rapoport, Garoppolo is expected to undergo surgery in the offseason.
Yet again, the message coming from Rapoport has sounded noticeably different from the 49ers. His assessment of Garoppolo’s status for next week was that the 49ers “hope” he can come back if they win this week, but that, “it is not a certainty.” That’s a bit more dour than Schefter’s report.
Shanahan said on Friday that Garoppolo was unlikely to need surgery.
“I don’t think so,” Shanahan said. “They said that they don’t think he needs surgery. That doesn’t mean that it can’t get worse and that you may need it, so I’m not sure about that. But he doesn’t need surgery right now. And from what I’m told, I don’t think he’ll need it after the season, but there’s always possibilities.”
Sure, Shanahan left the door cracked, if ever so slightly, for surgery. But he said Garoppolo didn’t need surgery “right now” two days ago, and didn’t think he’d need it after the season, after Garoppolo hadn’t practiced all week. It seems unlikely that nexus changed between Friday and Sunday.
Both the initial injury and assessment from the 49ers and Shanahan have been somewhat contradicted by follow-up reporting, and the entire situation seems odd. At this point, there’s no clarity on whether Garoppolo actually returns for the regular season finale, let alone in the playoffs.
