I’m not a big Jimmy Garoppolo fan. I’m not confident he can stay healthy, and I’m also not sure he’s very good.
For durability, I can’t explain it, but he never stays healthy for long. Only once in his career has he started more than 10 straight games. Including the playoffs, the 49ers have played 91 games in the last five years, and Garoppolo has missed all or significant parts of 39 of those games.
Asking Garoppolo to play behind a lesser offensive line in Las Vegas, to me, doesn’t sound like a great idea.
Setting aside the injuries and assuming that Garoppolo plays in all 17 games, let’s also wonder how good he might be.
We were kicking around yesterday the question of whether Kyle Shanahan might be able to salvage Sam Darnold. With a passer-friendly scheme, Shanahan has done good things with quarterbacks in the past, from Matt Ryan to Brock Purdy to Nick Mullens. Flipping that around, isn’t it also fair to wonder whether Shanahan has made Garoppolo look better than he actually is?
The 49ers, after all, did try to replace Garoppolo with Trey Lance.
And if we look at the numbers from the last five years, they show that the 49ers have actually averaged more passing yards and more touchdown passes when they’ve had other quarterbacks on the field. Seriously.
The 49ers in their 50 regular-season games with Garoppolo the last five seasons have averaged 238 passing yards, with 74 touchdowns (1.48 per game). In the 32 games that other quarterbacks started, they’ve averaged 245 passing yards, with 48 touchdowns (1.50 per game).
Garoppolo’s new coach, Josh McDaniels also has some ability to put together an offense, as evidenced by Jarrett Stidham’s play late last year. But I won’t be drafting Garoppolo this year.
| 49ERS STARTING QUARTERBACKS (last 5 yrs) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | St | Pass | TDP | Int | Run | TDR | Pts/G |
| 2018 | C.J. Beathard | 5 | 250.4 | 1.60 | 1.40 | 13.8 | .20 | 21.5 |
| 2022 | Brock Purdy | 5 | 219.6 | 2.20 | .40 | 2.2 | .20 | 21.2 |
| 2021 | Trey Lance | 2 | 220.5 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 60.0 | .00 | 21.0 |
| 2018 | Nick Mullens | 8 | 284.6 | 1.63 | 1.25 | -2.0 | .00 | 20.8 |
| 2020 | C.J. Beathard | 2 | 227.5 | 2.00 | .00 | 14.0 | .00 | 20.8 |
| 2018 | • Jimmy Garoppolo | 3 | 239.3 | 1.67 | 1.00 | 11.0 | .00 | 20.4 |
| 2019 | • Jimmy Garoppolo | 16 | 248.6 | 1.69 | .81 | 3.9 | .06 | 20.2 |
| 2021 | • Jimmy Garoppolo | 15 | 254.0 | 1.33 | .80 | 3.4 | .20 | 19.6 |
| 2020 | Nick Mullens | 8 | 266.0 | 1.25 | 1.38 | 1.3 | .00 | 18.7 |
| 2022 | • Jimmy Garoppolo | 10 | 228.3 | 1.50 | .40 | 2.8 | .10 | 18.3 |
| 2020 | • Jimmy Garoppolo | 6 | 182.7 | 1.17 | .83 | 4.2 | .00 | 14.2 |
| 2022 | Trey Lance | 2 | 97.0 | .00 | .50 | 33.5 | .00 | 8.2 |
—Ian Allan