Jimmy Garoppolo went 5-0 for the 49ers to close out last season, and he's a favorite to be one of 2018's breakout quarterbacks. But it might be too early to move him up into one of the league's top fantasy quarterbacks, and at least one opponent, Jacksonville's Jalen Ramsey, thinks he's a little over-hyped so far -- that he hasn't really arrived.
"Not yet, not yet," Ramsey said on NFL Network. "What he play -- five games? "He has good potential. I think he'll be a good player, but off my experience in playing him, it was a lot of scheme stuff. It wasn't like he was just dicing us up."
Garoppolo won all of his games, but most were against lesser competition (or in the case of the Rams in Week 17, a team holding out most of its starters). And he didn't put up huge numbers, especially in terms of touchdowns. He threw 6 TDs and ran for another in his games, ranking him in the lower half of quarterbacks who started at least five games a year ago.
| QUARTERBACK TDS PER START, 2017 (MINIMUM 5 GAMES) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | St | Pass | Run | Tot | TD/St |
| Deshaun Watson, Hou. | 6 | 18 | 7 | 25 | 3.33 |
| Carson Wentz, Phil. | 13 | 33 | 0 | 33 | 2.54 |
| Russell Wilson, Sea. | 16 | 34 | 3 | 37 | 2.31 |
| Aaron Rodgers, G.B. | 7 | 16 | 0 | 16 | 2.29 |
| Tom Brady, N.E. | 16 | 32 | 0 | 32 | 2.00 |
| Kirk Cousins, Wash. | 16 | 27 | 4 | 31 | 1.94 |
| Jared Goff, LAR | 15 | 28 | 1 | 29 | 1.93 |
| Ben Roethlisberger, Pitt. | 15 | 28 | 0 | 28 | 1.87 |
| Matthew Stafford, Det. | 16 | 29 | 0 | 29 | 1.81 |
| Alex Smith, K.C. | 15 | 26 | 1 | 27 | 1.80 |
| Josh McCown, NYJ | 13 | 18 | 5 | 23 | 1.77 |
| Dak Prescott, Dall. | 16 | 22 | 6 | 28 | 1.75 |
| Philip Rivers, LAC | 16 | 28 | 0 | 28 | 1.75 |
| Cam Newton, Car. | 16 | 22 | 6 | 28 | 1.75 |
| Case Keenum, Minn. | 14 | 21 | 1 | 22 | 1.57 |
| Andy Dalton, Cin. | 16 | 25 | 0 | 25 | 1.56 |
| Drew Brees, N.O. | 16 | 23 | 2 | 25 | 1.56 |
| Jameis Winston, T.B. | 13 | 19 | 1 | 20 | 1.54 |
| Derek Carr, Oak. | 15 | 22 | 0 | 22 | 1.47 |
| Blake Bortles, Jac. | 16 | 21 | 2 | 23 | 1.44 |
| Jimmy Garoppolo, S.F. | 5 | 6 | 1 | 7 | 1.40 |
| Jay Cutler, Mia. | 14 | 19 | 0 | 19 | 1.36 |
| Eli Manning, NYG | 15 | 19 | 1 | 20 | 1.33 |
| Carson Palmer, Ariz. | 7 | 9 | 0 | 9 | 1.29 |
| Matt Ryan, Atl. | 16 | 20 | 0 | 20 | 1.25 |
| Brett Hundley, G.B. | 9 | 9 | 2 | 11 | 1.22 |
| Marcus Mariota, Tenn. | 15 | 13 | 5 | 18 | 1.20 |
| Joe Flacco, Balt. | 16 | 18 | 1 | 19 | 1.19 |
| Trevor Siemian, Den. | 11 | 12 | 1 | 13 | 1.18 |
| Tyrod Taylor, Buff. | 14 | 13 | 3 | 16 | 1.14 |
| Jacoby Brissett, Ind. | 15 | 13 | 4 | 17 | 1.13 |
| DeShone Kizer, Clev. | 15 | 11 | 5 | 16 | 1.07 |
| Mitchell Trubisky, Chi. | 12 | 7 | 2 | 9 | 0.75 |
| Tom Savage, Hou. | 7 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0.71 |
That's not the end-all and be-all of course. He still put up plenty of yards, and winning all of his NFL starts to this point counts for a lot.
But Ramsey's point is that the quarterback is still a youngster finding his way, operating a simple scheme. Let's see how he fares now that defenses have some film to work with, and now that he'll have to be doing a little more in running San Francisco's offense. Too soon to say he's going to be one of the game's best quarterbacks this season.
--Andy Richardson