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.
