San Francisco 49ers: Jimmy Garoppolo injury an unequivocal blow
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo may have suffered a torn ACL on Sunday, and that’s an injury the team can not survive.
The San Francisco 49ers were the breakout team that many fans and pundits had pegged for the 2018 NFL season. They had yet to fully stake their claim to that through two weeks, but everyone was waiting for Jimmy Garoppolo and the Niners to hit their stride. Now we may not be able to see that this year.
According the 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan (per ESPN’s Adam Schefter), the team fears that the quarterback suffered a torn ACL late in the fourth quarter of San Francisco’s Week 3 matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs. Garoppolo will undergo an MRI on Monday, but all signs point to him being out for a significant amount of time at the bare minimum.
Despite the fact that the 49ers had not yet shown what we’d hoped in Garoppolo’s first full season starting at quarterback, the hope was still there. With a head coach like Kyle Shanahan leading the way for this team, they still appeared on the precipice of doing something special, even if it didn’t result in a postseason berth.
That all goes away, however, if Garoppolo isn’t under center. So much of Shanahan’s success as an offensive mind in the NFL hinges upon the performance and talent of the player at quarterback. C.J. Beathard simply doesn’t offer what Jimmy G can at the position.
Subsequently, the 49ers are left in a tough spot moving forward in 2018 without Garoppolo at the helm of the offense. It’s hard to imagine their early-season struggles getting anything but worse as they move forward without their starting quarterback.
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If there is a silver lining, however, it’s that the Niners were still seemingly a year or so away from truly competing as a contender. They need more pieces to fill out the rest of the roster around their franchise quarterback in Garoppolo. If he has indeed torn his ACL, then there’s virtually no chance of real success this season, which means better assets coming to San Francisco by way of the 2019 NFL Draft.
That might not be a lot of solace, but it’s something for 49ers fans to cling to after such a tough blow to their team and 2018 season.