Jimmy Garoppolo had an off game, and that’s okay

The last two weeks have been a rollercoaster for San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. On Halloween, Jimmy G arguably played the best game of his career. Against Seattle, independent of the drops and offensive line, Garoppolo didn’t play up to his standards. It was the least accurate he has been all season.

An off night for everyone

Garoppolo threw the ball 46 times Monday night, which is nine more attempts than he’s had in any game this season. Seattle was, in my opinion, his worst game to date, but it wasn’t because Garoppolo threw the ball the most. It’s because he was indecisive, and it hurt his results.

The Seahawks broke up six passes and batted another. They had three passes that hit them in the hands that they dropped, so Garoppolo had a good bit of interception luck. We haven’t seen a defense get their hands on this many passes or cause the type of indecision all season. Here are two plays. This first one is on the last play of the first series:

Here is another one that from former former personnel director, Nate Tice.

Garoppolo was off all night. I still counted the play above as a drop, unlike PFF. That’s one that Pettis has to come down with. Could the collision have been avoided if the ball was thrown on time? Yes. Should Pettis have caught the ball? Yes. There were a handful of situations throughout the game where everyone involved was wrong.

Garoppolo’s accuracy has been in the mid-’80s this season. Against Seattle, he was at 75%.

Not much help upfront

Speaking of PFF, we had their grades from the game. Here is how the offensive line graded out:

Staley 65.6

Tomlinson 53.5

Richburg 57.3

Person 58.5

McGlinchey 59.3

Garland 52.5

Here is what I had:

You only see three sacks because two of them were on Jimmy. They were situations where he has to throw the ball away, or in the dirt at a wideouts feet, but he couldn’t take a sack. When you get sacked after 3.5 seconds, that’s on the quarterback.

With that said, the offensive line made Jadeveon Clowney look like a combination of all the Niners’ defensive line. I’m only slightly exaggerating. Richburg did the “best,” but still missed five blocks. A good game would be 2-3 blown blocks in a game for a lineman. This game, everyone was getting beat. I think Garoppolo getting hit early never allowed him to get in a groove and get comfortable, and that threw off his timing all game.

Typically, Jimmy G shines when he’s under duress. That wasn’t the case Monday night, and I’m not sure why.

QB Ranking

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NFL Network has a QB index where four writers rank the quarterbacks around the league. Garoppolo is down one spot to No. 13:

Parr: There were enough drops by 49ers receivers on Monday night to drive even the most composed QB batty, but Jimmy G’s own miscues (including two fumbles, one of which was returned for a TD) also contributed to San Francisco’s first loss of the season. Garoppolo was without his main man George Kittle for the entirety of the game, and his new favorite target,Emmanuel Sanders, exited early in the second quarter with a rib injury. He missed them, and it showed. Garoppolo was 3 of 18 (16.7 completion percentage) for 59 yards and 1 INT on passes traveling 10-plus air yards vs. Seattle, per Next Gen Stats. That’s the lowest completion rate by any QB with at least 15 such attempts in a game this season. Just look at the disparity between Garoppolo’s production with and without Sanders on Monday:

With Sanders: 10 of 15 (66.7%), 115 pass yards, 1 TD, 0 INT, 111.8 passer rating Without Sanders: 14 of 31 (45.2%), 133 pass yards, 0 TD, 1 INT, 44.2 passer rating

Despite his struggles, the Niners’ QB still had a chance to be the hero in overtime, but he was just 1 of 5 for 7 yards on his 2 drives in the final stanza.

The fumbles were something I hadn’t even discussed, but those were killer. Avoidable? There’s no way to quantify that. There is so much luck that goes into fumbling. Still, you have to hold onto the ball.

Again, missing Kittle and Sanders are going to cause you to hold onto the ball. Garoppolo was only sacked once when Sanders was on the field, compared to four times without. All season we’ve seen Jimmy G be decisive and get the ball out of his hands. That’s because he’s had a player he can rely on to throw the ball to.

One bad game shouldn’t change your opinion of a player. Not when that player is coming off an ACL injury and has played nine games with brand new wideouts. We were spoiled the first two months of the season. Garoppolo hardly faced adversity. Let’s see how he bounces back these next few weeks.