O'Donnell: Is Garoppolo headed anywhere where his winning ways could plague the Bears?
SOMETIMES IT'S HARD TO BE an unfettered member of the Jimmy Garoppolo Fan Club.
But any dip into melancholia can be tempered when Jimmy G's team - in this case, the San Francisco Forty-Niners - are getting 3½ points during a 20-17 loss in the NFC Championship Game.
Which is exactly what happened vs. the Los Angeles Rams last Sunday as a season-high Fox/NFL audience of 50.8 million watched.
(Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones would call it "Mixed Emotions")
For Arlington Heights' very own $137M QB, the game was almost certainly his farewell to the team once by the bay.
SO NOW THE QUESTION LOOMS:
What's next for Jimmy G?
The Forty-Niners have had young Trey Lance serving out a comfortable apprenticeship.
Garoppolo's market value is speculative.
Yes, he participated in two very public late-game meltdowns - in Super Bowl 54 against Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City and last weekend opposite the Rams.
But, when healthy, his record as a starter for Kyle Shanahan in SF was 37-16, including 4-2 in two postseasons.
(Without Garoppolo, Shanahan was 6-28 in the span.)
HE HAS ONE SEASON remaining - for $24.2 million - on his platinum-gold five-year contract.
Teams nudging the league's top tier in search of a plug in-and-win quarterback logically should be vetting His G-Ness.
The shortlist, according to wiser folks, includes Tampa, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Carolina, Indianapolis, Denver and Washington.
Two heavily asterisked also-eligibles are Minnesota and New England.
The Steelers would appear to be a strong fit. But head coach Mike Tomlin continues to insist he wants "a mobile quarterback."
For most teams, that would not be Garoppolo.
But coming after Ben Roethlisberger, that could be anybody up to Terry Bradshaw - as is.
Garoppolo may also have to take a trim in that $24.2 million for 2022 to help his new grid homies stay under the salary cap.
THE LAST TIME SF HAD a well-regarded star in a departure strait, management allowed defensive brute DeForest Buckner and his agent to identify a mutually acceptable new home and then worked out compensation.
Buckner signed with the Colts and again was All-Pro this season.
It is quite possible that SF GM John Lynch and ownership will extend the same courtesy to Garoppolo.
HE CAN'T GO BACK to Eastern Illinois. He can't go back to Rolling Meadows High. He can't go back to the traveling Arlington Heights Cowboys.
But James Richard Garoppolo helped resurrect winning football in the Bay Area.
And now, at age 30 and well beyond halfway to the stars, his culminating football moment is hopefully yet to come.
STREET-BEATIN': NBC is set to begin its remote video presentations from the Beijing Winter Olympics with the transglobally benign Mike Tirico as studio centerpiece and how many Americans really care? In light of China's sordid human rights abuses, the United States shouldn't be participating and it is quivering Jell-O internationalism in the first degree. ...
WSCR-AM (670)'s Mike Mulligan and David Haugh must have taken puppy tranquilizers before their Wednesday a.m. sniff-no-evil with Bears "search guru" Bill Polian. George McCaskey's chihuahuas have a lot of explaining to do about why Jim Harbaugh wasn't interviewed. (Mulligan and Haugh asked and then moused down when the lotto-lucky Polian snappishly deflected.) ...
Bad news for DeMar DeRozan fans: Listed hotel rates for the NBA's upcoming All-Star Weekend in Cleveland are nonsensical. ($1,332 for a night at a Fairfield Inn? Without Rocky Colavito?) LeBron James might want to consider opening up his Akron-area estate for some b-n-b revenue. ...
Churchill Downs Inc. and the remaining ghost dancers at Arlington Park really went all out to see that the track's website carried a full and appropriate tribute to the life and times of Dick Duchossois. (Not), Just proving again, put Bunker Bill Carstanjen and snit-prone Anthony "Press Box" Petrillo on the same Zoom call and not a whole lot of measured sensitivity is going to result.
Man-about-suburbs Craig Dreiling was quietly efficient in assisting the media channeling of last weekend's Norge Winter Ski Jumping Tournament in Fox River Grove. (Faithful charge d'affaires Melanie Ryan was in lockstep; the event was a happy and civil success.) ...
ABC/ESPN will send pulses racing this weekend with must-flee coverage of both the NHL All-Star Weekend and the NFL's Pro Bowl from Las Vegas. (Exactly why Bugsy Siegel and Wayne Newton built the town.) ...
And Brent Musburger, with one certain pick for Super Bowl 56: "I always bet the quarterbacks to throw an interception. With Matt Stafford, that's easy money."
• Jim O'Donnell's Sports & Media column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.