Shanahan said last week that he doesn’t “see any scenario” where Jimmy Garoppolo is back with San Francisco next season, and the team is content with Trey Lance and Brock Purdy as the top two signal-callers entering training camp.
“I start Jimmy,” Montana said on the “Open Mike” podcast. “How many games has Jimmy won? For the longest time, questions were out with Jimmy for a while. But the one thing he has been able to do is win games for those guys. He’ll make a mistake here and there, but some of those things I don’t just put on Jimmy.”
As one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time and a four-time Super Bowl champion and two-time MVP during his time with the 49ers, Montana knows a thing or two about playing under center in San Francisco.
“(Garoppolo) still won a lot of games before he got hurt,” the 66-year-old Hall-of-Famer said. “He put them in that position to go on that run to begin with. So you handed a guy a team — sort of like somebody else I know got handed a team — so you gotta go with the guy that’s been winning games and gets the offense and go from there.”
The 2021 No. 3 overall pick, Lance opened 2022 as the Niners starting quarterback, before going down with a season-ending ankle injury in Week 2. “Jimmy G” was reinserted as the starter after Lance’s injury before his own foot injury sidelined him from early in Week 13 onward.
Purdy (who was the final pick of the 2022 NFL Draft) took over for Garoppolo and inherited a loaded offense with the newly acquired Christian McCaffrey, stud tight end George Kittle and electric wide receivers Brandon Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel.
The powerful offensive weapons, an elite defense and solid play from Purdy led San Francisco on a season-ending 10-game winning streak (the final six of which were won by Purdy) and they earned the No. 2 seed in the NFC playoffs.
Purdy helped get the 49ers to the NFC Championship Game before he exited early against the Philadelphia Eagles with an elbow injury.
After fourth-string quarterback Josh Johnson exited with a concussion, the rookie came back into the game, but the Eagles dominated in a 31-7 victory. Though there have been some conflicting reports regarding Purdy’s torn UCL, Shanahan said that the team is confident in the rookie’s return next season.
Lance played only two games in 2022 and has played just eight career games (four starts), while Purdy finished his rookie year with a 7-1 record (including the playoffs) and 1,943 passing yards plus 16 passing touchdowns against only four interceptions. In 11 games (10 starts), Garoppolo posted 2,437 passing yards, 16 touchdowns and four interceptions.
