San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo didn’t inspire much confidence after his first preseason game following last season’s ACL tear.
The former Patriots backup threw an interception and had a good share of deflected/nearly picked passes (1 of 6 passing in all) against Denver before a bounce-back game against Kansas City last week.
But there understandably was concern over Garoppolo’s ball security this preseason — he was fortunate to just have one pick. Yet, according to Garoppolo, all those risky passes have been on purpose. He said that he has been throwing ill-advised passes into coverage this preseason as a way to give his receivers practice with contested passes.
He said via NBC Sports:
“A big part of that is it still being preseason, or in practice, you try things like that. You know, during a real game, you wouldn’t make that throw or that decision, but there’s a trust factor between quarterback and . . . whoever’s catching the ball. The more you try those things, you see who’s going to make the play for you in a crucial situation.”
While that sort of makes sense in a way — these games don’t really count, so might as well work on stuff — the tape against Denver didn’t really support that explanation.
He had passes blocked at the line of scrimmage. A route was jumped on one near-interception, and on his pick, he threw across his body while getting pressured.
At the very least, Garoppolo made a solid attempt at spinning the narrative and calming any reason to panic for, well, two weeks.
