5:45 PM ET
HENDERSON, Nev. — The first time Jimmy Garoppolo met Josh McDaniels? Garoppolo was on a pre-draft visit with the New England Patriots in the spring of 2014 and McDaniels, then the Patriots’ offensive coordinator, was running the quarterback through his offense on the whiteboard.
“I don’t know if it was planned, but I swear he planned it — Tom Brady walked in,” Garoppolo, laughing, said Friday. “And I thought it would throw me off a little bit because I had never met him before, and a little starstruck. But yeah, he walked out, and Josh kept going with the teaching. That was our first interaction.”
The Garoppolo-McDaniels reunion, nine years later and in Las Vegas, had been delayed a day because of some last-minute contract “language,” Garoppolo said in his 17-minute introductory news conference with the Raiders. The two sides on Monday had agreed in principle to a three-year, $67.5 million free agent deal that includes $34 million guaranteed.
Garoppolo, 31, replaces Derek Carr, who had been the Raiders starter since 2014 but was benched with two games remaining last season by McDaniels, in his first year as Raiders coach. Carr, who holds most Raiders career franchise passing records, stayed away