Niners’ Garoppolo improved dramatically after his team acquired Sanders in October
Warranted or not, there were plenty of questions surrounding Jimmy Garoppolo during the first half of the 2019 season.
Is he good enough to win a Super Bowl? Is he worth his $137.5 million contract?
Can he continue the San Francisco 49ers’ tradition of elite quarterback play that’s been in flux since Steve Young retired in 1999?
Garoppolo may need to win this weekend’s Super Bowl against the Kansas City Chiefs to fully convince the skeptics. But the volume of those questions is lower now: Garoppolo quarterbacks the NFC’s top team. A Super Bowl team.
A former understudy to Patriots quarterback Tom Brady in New England, Garoppolo had some great moments this year. Against the New Orleans Saints in December, for instance, he threw for 349 yards and four touchdown passes en route to a last-minute comeback.
But this season’s true pivot point for Garoppolo, who went through his first full campaign as a starter since missing nearly all of 2018 with a torn ACL, came in October, when the 49ers traded for former Denver Broncos star receiver Emmanuel Sanders.
Better later in year
Garoppolo threw for 3,978 yards with 27 touchdowns and 13 interceptions this season, completing 69.1 percent of his passes for a 102.0 passer rating.
He had seven games with a passer rating of 110.2 or better after Sanders’ arrival in October — eight counting the playoffs.
“I think everybody’s kind of catching our stride, and it starts with number 10,” 49ers right tackle Mike McGlinchey said of Garoppolo. “The preparation that he puts in week in and week out, the command that he’s starting to feel. The confidence and swagger that he plays with — I don’t know if anybody has more of that than him.”
Garoppolo’s numbers weren’t nearly as robust in the beginning of the season, when the 49ers were winning mostly due to bruising defense and one of the league’s best rushing attacks.
During his first six games, Garoppolo ranked 20th in the NFL with a 90.8 passer rating. At that point, 20 quarterbacks had more touchdown passes than his seven.
So what changed, aside from adding a Pro Bowl talent in Sanders?
“I think he’s continued to make big throws and stuff, but he’s obviously eliminated some of the turnovers, which I think is huge,” Kyle Shanahan said.
“Sometimes when guys make a bunch of big plays and turnovers, the only way to get them to eliminate the turnovers is to stop trying to make those big plays. I don’t think Jimmy has done that. I think he’s continued to make big plays, maybe even made more of them, and the turnovers have gone way down, which has been a huge step in the right direction.”
Garoppolo began the year by averaging one interception per 28 pass attempts. But in his last 11 games of 2019-20, counting the playoffs, he threw just seven picks.
Shanahan pointed to Garoppolo’s experience, or lack thereof, as one reason for his improvement in not giving the ball away.
Garoppolo before this year had never started more than five games in a season.
“Some people, the more they are out there, the more nervous they get and they go into a shell and just get worse. Jimmy, no matter whether a good thing or a bad thing happens to him, I feel it’s made him better each week,” said Shanahan. “He learns from it, he doesn’t over analyze it and freak out about it.
“He just learns from it, files it in the bank and then goes to the next week and tries to keep stacking them up.”
Definitely good enough
Garoppolo helped the Niners outlast the likes of the Aaron Rodgers-led Packers, Drew Brees’ Saints and Russell Wilson’s Seahawks and make it to the Super Bowl.
Atlanta Falcons coach Dan Quinn said he definitely noticed some of the San Francisco QB’s better traits on display this season.
“I think some of the things that jumped out to me were his release, his decision making, accuracy,” Quinn said. “You’re also seeing some of the players develop too.”
To Quinn’s point, San Francisco often rotated receivers early in the year. Down the homestretch of the regular season, the wideouts’ roles became more defined around Sanders, rookie Deebo Samuel and Kendrick Bourne.
Sanders has been a viable No. 1 option for San Francisco. He had his most productive game of the season in New Orleans with 157 yards on nine catches, including a critical 75-yard touchdown after the Saints made it a two-score game in the second quarter. He also added the second touchdown throw of his career on a double reverse pass that went to running back Raheem Mostert.
Bourne was asked when he noticed Garoppolo, and the 49ers’ offense in general, begin playing at a higher level. For Bourne, the delineation was clear.
“When Emmanuel got here, for sure,” he said. “It was kind of just showing us that we need to step up as a receiver group.”
This story was originally published January 27, 2020 at 3:10 PM.
