When the 49ers signed former Patriots backup quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo to a five-year, $137.5 million contract before the 2017 season, it was seen as a calculated risk and perhaps the ideal move over time for head coach Kyle Shanahan, an offensive play-caller who requires a lot of flexibility from his quarterback. Selected by the Patriots in the second round of the 2014 draft, Garoppolo had already proven as Tom Brady’s backup that he could excel in a complicated offense, and his skill set seems ideal for Shanahan’s offense.
Garoppolo has reminded me of peak Tony Romo with his mobility; arm talent that allows him to reach intermediate and deep routes with consistency; and an implicit understanding of his place in an offense. In six games and five starts for the 49ers in 2017, he competed 67.4% of his passes for 1,560 yards, seven touchdowns and five interceptions.
In the three games he started in 2018 before he suffered a torn ACL, Garoppolo seemed to regress, though. He completed just 59.6% of his passes for 718 yards, five touchdowns and three interceptions. Last season was his second year in an offense that’s both very complex and highly favorable to quarterbacks with its designed openings and pre-snap motion, and you’d want to see more from a guy who seemed to have the hang of the playbook by then.
One interesting wrinkle as Garoppolo has worked to recover physically and be ready for the start of the 2019 season is his work with Mike Shanahan, Kyle’s father and one of the most respected offensive play designers of his era. As 49ers coaches worked with backups C.J. Beathard and Nick Mullens, Garoppolo dug into a lot of things with another Shanahan who could help him see things he might not have seen before.
“Literally everything,” Garoppolo said in April when asked what the focus was. “We watched our offense, our defense, other teams, teams that played two years ago that he thought a clip could help me. It’s applicable in different ways. He’s so smart that it was incredible to have that experience, and I thank him a lot for that.”
It’s a smart way for Garoppolo to handle the recovery process, because when you watch his tape, you see two things: a player with all the attributes required to become a franchise quarterback, and a player who’s still learning a lot of the things that make that equation work.
Based on my own film study, I think Garoppolo is smart enough and talented enough to take advantage of every schematic edge given to him, but he struggles in situations where his reads become complicated by late-breaking coverage, or situations where closed (safety) coverage in the middle of the field limits his options. It’s a fairly common issue among good quarterbacks, but the best in the business know how to transcend it.
For both good and bad plays, I focused on the 2018 season, when Garoppolo had a full year with Shanahan and his staff, and when he wasn’t still trying to digest a new complicated playbook in San Francisco after learning another complicated playbook in Foxborough.
This Mike Hughes interception in San Francisco’s 24-16 Week 1 loss to the Vikings has an interesting subplot. When slot defender Jayron Kearse moves off slot receiver Dante Pettis, Pettis is wide open through the entirety of the 15-yard out cut he runs. But Garoppolo either doesn’t adjust to the late blitz or simply decides to throw outside to receiver Kendrick Bourne anyway. Bourne’s route isn’t great against Hughes’ bail coverage, but Garoppolo serves up an easy pick-six outside of the specifics of the route. Good quarterbacks tend to look at the gap between a vacated tight coverage and a deep safety with a lot of anticipation.
This interception thrown to safety Harrison Smith — the third pick of Garoppolo’s day — is a real problem. Garoppolo is trying to hit receiver Trent Taylor out of a nasty bunch set to the left side. Linebacker Eric Kendricks takes Taylor up the chute, with Smith and fellow safety Andrew Sendejo converging. Smith easily jumps the throw; Garoppolo didn’t seem interested in testing any other aspect of Minnesota’s coverage.
This deep touchdown to Pettis is impressive in one way, but doesn’t really address of the question of whether Garoppolo can consistently test tight coverage with accurate throws, because the play is so random — he bails out of the pocket and nails Pettis on a deep over and a post-pressure adjustment, but he’s throwing a prayer off the back of his feet. It’s a great highlight, but is it sustainable? For most quarterbacks, the answer is no.
When Garoppolo works within Shanahan’s system, biding his time and awaiting the openings, better things happen. Here, on a 35-yard touchdown pass to fullback Kyle Juszczyk, he waits for Juszczyk to leak out to the right after the Chiefs had declared the coverage and had not accounted for the fullback.
And here, he has receiver Marquise Goodwin wide-open on a mesh concept in the red zone for another easy touchdown.
The phrase “system quarterback” is generally a pejorative one, generally used when describing a layer who can’t transcend the playbook and make plays outside of any structure. Garoppolo has the potential to go beyond the constraints of Shanahan’s system, but one wonders why he would. At this point in his career, Garoppolo’s best bet is to adhere to the workings of the NFL’s best offensive play-caller and develop the parts of his game that are still undeniably in question.
If Garoppolo is ready for Week 1 of the 2019 season, things will be looking up for him. It will be his third season under Shanahan. Pettis has become one of the better slot receivers in the NFL. He’ll have the services of running back Jerick McKinnon, who missed the entire 2018 season with a torn ACL after he was signed to a four-year, $30 million deal. The addition of ex-Falcons running back Tevin Coleman gives the 49ers even more flexibility out of the running back position.
Second-round pick Deebo Samuel should be a YAC monster as he was in the SEC, and Shanahan is highly intrigued by the potential of third-round pick Jalen Hurd, who could be an extra mismatch player in a Cordarrelle Patterson-type role. Oh, and there’s the return of George Kittle, who set a single-season record for receiving yards by a tight end in 2018.
Jimmy Garoppolo has the contract, the coaches, the weapons and the potential. Now, its time for him to master the highest complexities of the position and meet those challenges head-on.
