The confounding case of Jimmy Garoppolo: The valuable QB the 49ers win in spite of
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Two things are true when it comes to Jimmy Garoppolo and the San Francisco 49ers.
First, his team wouldn’t have reached another NFC Championship game without his clutch performance in the Week 18 victory over the Rams. That’s the same team he’ll face Sunday in SoFi Stadium for a shot at his second Super Bowl in three seasons.
His final drive to tie the game, starting with 1:27 left, included a 43-yard strike to Deebo Samuel and a game-tying touchdown pass to Jauan Jennings. That performance came in his first game after tearing a ligament and suffering an avulsion fracture in his right thumb.
It became Garoppolo’s finest moment as San Francisco’s starting quarterback. The season was on the line and he delivered. It was a big deal.
Which is notable because Garoppolo’s time with San Francisco has felt devoid of a signature game — something to point to beyond his 5-0 run in 2017 that earned a long-term contract after the midseason trade with the Patriots. The win over the Rams meant more than his duel with Drew Brees in December 2019 or the Seahawks weeks later because the stakes weren’t nearly as high. Seeding was on the line, but not the playoffs altogether.
Which leads to a second truth when it comes to Garoppolo: the 49ers advanced through the first two rounds of this postseason largely in spite of Garoppolo, who didn’t exactly light it up in Dallas and Green Bay.
Garoppolo’s postseason
This postseason, Garoppolo against the Cowboys and Packers combined to complete 27 of 44 (61%) passes with no touchdowns, two interceptions and 151 passing yards per game. His 6.89 yards per attempt and 62.97 passer rating are down significantly from his regular-season numbers of 8.6 and 98.7. He ranked second and ninth in those categories during the regular season, respectively.
Of course, two postseason games is a small sample size and there are other factors to consider. Garoppolo played in zero-degree temperatures in Green Bay and he wasn’t helped by drops from his pass-catchers and poor pass protection from his offensive linemen, particularly on third downs, in the first half. He was also playing through the thumb injury and had a sprained shoulder, which he no longer needs treatment for this week.
“I thought Jimmy battled,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said after Saturday’s win. “Some of the plays Jimmy made in the first half, I mean that throw to (George) Kittle was going to be a touchdown and Kittle missed that. One play later when they blitzed us, and for him to get it off to Jauan (Jennings) and give him a chance. I thought Jimmy made some really good plays in this game. I don’t think people understand what that is kind of like out there.”
Indeed, Garoppolo played well enough late in the game to get the 49ers in range for the game-winning field goal. He completed 12- and 14-yard passes to Kittle and Deebo Samuel to get the offense in range. Though he nearly gave the game away in Dallas when he threw his fourth-quarter interception that almost buoyed the Cowboys’ comeback attempt from a 16-point deficit.
Garoppolo’s playoff numbers aren’t a total surprise given what happened in 2019, when he famously had just eight pass attempts in the NFC title game, a week after Shanahan took the ball out of his hands with a run-centric second half against the Vikings after he threw an interception before halftime.
Which points to perhaps Garoppolo’s defining traits with the 49ers. He’s just a confounding quarterback whose value lies mostly in intangible things like resiliency, getting his teammates to rally behind him, being a great teammate and, most importantly, winning.
Because even when Garoppolo threw his red zone interception at the end of the second quarter in Green Bay, or throwing wobbly horizontal passes that could have been snagged by Packers defenders, the trust in Garoppolo from his teammates has never wavered.
And that matters this time of year.
“We’re able to maintain trust in him because we keep winning,” linebacker Fred Warner said Wednesday. “If you went down the list of order of importance at that positions on the team, quarterback’s number one. A team’s success is very heavily dependent on the quarterback position. So the fact that we’re winning games is not just a surprise. Jimmy is playing great football.”
Kittle, Garoppolo’s most staunch supporter, also credited the quarterback’s resiliency for getting the team to this point.
“Jimmy G, you can’t say enough about that guy,” Kittle said. “The s--- that he takes. People consistently try to pull him down and all he does is just try to deliver. He leads this team, he gives us sense of calm in the huddle, sense of calm in the storm and he allows us to play football at a high level.”
A calm quarterback for the Rams game
The sense of calm was something Garoppolo and his teammates mentioned in Green Bay. Going down 7-0 early and failing to score points before halftime could have led to panic. But Garoppolo and the other veterans kept things steady and didn’t overreact. San Francisco scored 10 straight points in the fourth quarter, with seven coming on a blocked punt returned for touchdown, and escaped with a victory that will go down as one of the best in 49ers lore, given the circumstances.
“Even when they had the lead, I felt like we were controlling the game, as crazy as that sounds,” Garoppolo said. “But you could feel it on the sideline. We were waiting for that one play to spark us, and Jordan (Willis) with the blocked punt and (then the) scoop and score was all that. That’s just how we win. It’s never going to be pretty, but we find a way.”
There’s little doubt the 49ers will need a better performance from Garoppolo against the Rams to help San Francisco become just the third No. 6 seed to reach the Super Bowl (the previous two teams, the 2005 Steelers and 2010 Packers, both hoisted the Lombardi Trophy).
It would likely take something more similar to Garoppolo’s performance Week 18, when he threw for 316 yards while guiding the offense to scores late in the fourth quarter and in overtime.
Beating the Rams, again, and getting to the Super Bowl would be a storybook ending for Garoppolo, who likely won’t remain with San Francisco beyond this playoff run, no matter how it turns out. The 49ers sold the farm to find his replacement in Trey Lance and only believe in him more after developing him behind the scenes this season.
Garoppolo embraced the opportunity to remain the starter and became hardened by the circumstances. And there was never any ignoring the truth from the parties involved.
Which has helped, if you ask Shanahan.
“A ton. That is the reality we’re at,” Shanahan said this week. “It’s been that way for a while, since we made that trade and the more that we all can accept it and know it and not beat around the bush, the easier it is to go on with your jobs. And that’s what we’ve all done and we’ve all enjoyed each other as people, we all respect the hell of each other in our profession. And I think it’s just allowed everyone to move on and be themselves. And I think throughout the year, that’s allowed him to get better, it’s allowed our team to get better, it’s allowed me to get better and focus on what we should focus on and just trying to be as good at our jobs as we can.”
If you don’t think it matters, take a look at what’s happening in Green Bay. It was impossible to watch the Packers offense operate in their loss Saturday and not think about the cloud Aaron Rodgers’ uncertain future put on the game and the entire franchise. A similar case could be made about the Seahawks and Russell Wilson, who missed the playoffs this season for just the second time in 10 years after he made a trade demand.
Garoppolo might be confounding in that he means so much to the team while also leaving much to be desired on the field. But he hasn’t made a tough situation worse like others in his position might. He’s turned it into a positive, and that’s worth commending.
This story was originally published January 28, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
