49ers: Grading and analyzing Jimmy Garoppolo’s 2019 season

The San Francisco 49ers finally got a full season of Jimmy Garoppolo as their starting quarterback after having him on the team for the last three seasons. So, how did he do?

After missing nearly the entire 2018 season with a torn ACL, the San Francisco 49ers were finally able to get a full season of Jimmy Garoppolo after exchanging a second-round pick for the quarterback back in October of 2017.

Finally having an at least average quarterback seemed to work wonders for the 49ers as a team. They went from just 4-12 to 13-3 this season. Thanks to a healthy Garoppolo, coach Kyle Shanahan was able to fully utilize his West Coast playbook.

However, although the 49ers record doesn’t show it, Garoppolo wasn’t otherworldly this season. He had 27 touchdown passes (tied for fifth in the NFL) and tossed up 13 interceptions (tied for eighth in the NFL). His 3,978 passing yards ranked 12th in the NFL.

With the 49ers being a run-heavy team — their 498 rush attempts ranked second in the NFL — Garoppolo wasn’t asked to pass much.

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He had just 476 pass attempts, which ranked 19th in the NFL. The 49ers overall pass attempts of 478 ranked 29th in the NFL, just to show how rare it was for the team to pass.

Although Garoppolo didn’t pass very often, he did a good job completing his passes, finishing with a 69.1 completion percentage. Additionally, he had a 102.0 QB rating for the season and Pro Football Focus ranked him as the 13th-best starting QB in the NFL with a 78.2 rating.

To make it easier for you to see how little Garoppolo passed the ball here are some more stats.

Garoppolo had just seven games this year with more than 30 pass attempts, and just two games with more than 40. He averaged 29.75 pass attempts per game. However, he never had less than 20 attempts in a game.

Furthermore, Garoppolo had just three games in 2019 where he passed for more than 300 yards, one of these he passed for more than 400. He averaged just 248.6 passing yards per game. Surprisingly, he never passed for fewer than 150 yards in a game but had five games where he passed for less than 200.

So with all this being said, what would I give Jimmy Garoppolo as a grade for his 2019 season?

The Grade

Going off just his regular season stats, I would give Garoppolo a solid B. However, I can’t forget about how he did in the playoffs.

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Jimmy G wasn’t the best in the playoffs. His completion percentage dropped to 63.8% and he averaged just 19.3 passing attempts and 142.3 passing yards per game.

He only passed for two touchdowns while he threw three interceptions. Additionally, his QB rating dropped tremendously — from 102.0 to 75.9.

Garoppolo had a few games this season where he looked great as a pocket passer. However, with a limited number of starts at already the age of 28, he still makes mistakes that a QB would make in their second or third year in the NFL.

Not being relied on often, Garoppolo wasn’t such a big reason why the 49ers had such a great season this year, but he was a reason.

They had a dominant rushing game, which led to a reduced amount of pressure on Garoppolo, but you could argue that their run game was so good because they had the pass as an option this year.

Overall, Garoppolo did his job as a game manager this year and got his team to the playoffs and to the Super Bowl. However, he came up flat in the playoffs and showed he isn’t very good in the clutch just yet.

My grade for Garoppolo’s entire 2019 season, including the playoffs, is a B-.

Grade: B-