The Miami Dolphins weren’t exactly loaded with depth at the all-important quarterback position in the 2024 season. That fact came back to bite them, as signal-caller Tua Tagovailoa sat out six of the team’s 17 games with injuries, and Miami was just 2-4 without him on the field.
With free agency approaching and the Dolphins having room for improvement at the backup quarterback spot, Dolphins insider David Furones has floated 33-year-old quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo as an option in free agency.
“One name that stands out is Jimmy Garoppolo, who was with the [Los Angeles] Rams last season and goes back with [Mike] McDaniel to time together with the [San Francisco] 49ers,” Furones wrote.
Tyler Huntley started all but one of the six games Tagovailoa missed and gave Miami pretty inconsistent play overall. He totaled just 829 passing yards on the season and finished with the same number of touchdowns as he did interceptions.
Garoppolo, on the other hand, logged just one start with the Rams a season ago. In Los Angeles’ loss to the Seattle Seahawks back on Jan. 5, he totaled 334 passing yards to go along with two passing touchdowns compared to one interception.
That performance aside, the former second-round pick in the 2014 NFL Draft hasn’t played his best football of late. In the 2023 campaign, he threw more interceptions than touchdowns across seven games played (six starts) with the Las Vegas Raiders.
His most recent standout season came in the 2022 season, which marked his final season as a member of the 49ers. He started 10 games, and San Francisco had a 7-3 record with him leading the offense. Furthermore, Garoppolo threw for 16 touchdowns.
The 2022 season wasn’t that long ago in the sense that it would not be entirely unreasonable for Miami to hold out hope that he could give the team that level of production if called upon.
Garoppolo has a connection to Miami’s current head coach, McDaniel, in the sense that McDaniel was on San Francisco’s coaching staff when Garoppolo was the team’s starting quarterback. They worked alongside one another when the 49ers reached the Super Bowl in the 2019 season and lost to the Kansas City Chiefs on football’s biggest stage.
Only time will tell if Garoppolo will soon be playing for McDaniel once again. If for nothing else, it would make for a great story.
