San Francisco 49ers: Give Jimmy Garoppolo time to come back
Jimmy Garoppolo has played two preseason games for the San Francisco 49ers since tearing his ACL and one thing is clear: Nothing is clear.
The much-ballyhooed return of Jimmy Garoppolo to the football field went poorly. Roughly 11 months after tearing his ACL last season, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback took the field in Week 2 of the 2019 NFL preseason against the Denver Broncos.
It’s hard to imagine Jimmy G’s return being less triumphant. Garoppolo went 1-of-6 for zero yards, no touchdowns and one interception. He looked even worse than those numbers would indicate, too — if that’s even possible. At least one of his other pass attempts should’ve been intercepted in that matchup.
There was almost no way the Niners could see worse from Garoppolo in his second outing of the preseason. Much to the delight of every fan in San Francisco, the quarterback came out and lit up the Kansas City Chiefs defense in the third week of preseason action.
Leading the charge in a winning effort for the 49ers, Jimmy G went 14-of-20 for 188 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions. He looked like a completely different player than in the previous week, show a much higher level of comfort and (obviously) being exponentially more productive when on the field.
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It’s undoubtedly a positive sign to see Garoppolo put the jitters of his first preseason action behind him, take the field again and succeed. That has to give those hoping the San Francisco 49ers are a dark horse playoff team in 2019 optimism about what the quarterback can do this season.
At the same time, though, the incredibly uneven performances for the Niners quarterback don’t offer much clarity. We can probably be safe in assuming that 1-for-6 for zero yards isn’t going to be the base-line performance for Garoppolo. But is what we saw in Week 3 of the preseason what fans should expect? Or is the answer somewhere in between the two?
The simplest answer is that we don’t know. Two preseason games as a player recovering from a season-ending knee injury plays against mostly pedestrian defenses isn’t enough of a sample size to make any kind of meaningful assessment. Garoppolo remains an unknown commodity with the 2019 season looming.
From his debut with the 49ers in 2017 and even in glimpses at the start of the 2018 season (albeit with some growing pains), we’ve seen that Garoppolo can be an effective NFL quarterback. However, playing in the loaded NFC West and coming off of a serious injury adds plenty of question marks to the outlook for the Niners.
The best course of action for the 49ers and their starting quarterback is just to wait and see. That may not be reactionary or even entertaining but it’s the proper manner to handle this situation. We won’t know what to expect of Jimmy Garoppolo until he’s on the field in the regular season. And really, he deserves the time to prove himself further beyond two preseason contests.
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What’s more, even if Garoppolo starts out the regular season continuing to be a bit up and down, that’s fine in itself too. Any player in his position needs time to recover and fully get comfortable being back in the game. So let’s not overreact to every pass attempt, good or bad — let’s give Jimmy G the cushion he’s warranted in his comeback.