Steve Young believes some of Garoppolo’s miscues are related to his ACL injury

Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Steve Young was on KNBR and discussed Jimmy Garoppolo’s performance Sunday. We’ve heard several different points of view this week, and the Garoppolo analysis isn’t going anywhere, so why not from someone who played the position well enough to be a Hall of Famer?

Young was asked how much of Garoppolo’s accuracy, or inaccuracy, can be attributed to it being his first game back from injury, the young wide receivers, or is this how he will be?

You gotta figure there’s a little of all of that. In the end, you’re coming off a knee, and I don’t feel like you really drive it. They always say the second year of a knee injury. Everyone I’ve ever heard from this year to 20 years ago. You’re playing, but you’re not 100%. Then the second year you feel great. I’m not saying he’s going to baby the knee the whole way and he’s going to be throwing high all year. All the sudden you have to make adjustments like, ‘man, I didn’t realize that I was babying it.’ I’m sure this isn’t going to go away right away.

That’s a talking point that hasn’t been brought up yet. Young was saying Garoppolo is babying his knee by not putting pressure on it like he would have before the injury without even realizing it.

The follow-up question was if Garoppolo isn’t driving the ball—which Young mentioned—does that cause your misses to be high and behind the wide receiver? Here’s what Young had to say:

“Crossing routes to their left, you have to really open up and turn and torque over the top of your leg to get the ball actually on target. Even when you feel great, you’re behind a lot of the crossing routes away from your throwing hand. So that probably is a big factor. And then (throwing) high is always a factor, right? Because you can’t drive and then drop your knee and put the weight on it. That’s the part that makes the difference. High and the crossing routes, especially for him to the left.”

Young continued to talk about ball placement, and how “if you throw a really bad ball in the NFL, it doesn’t go to the ground. Someone is going to get it.” Young also talks about the defensive line and how they drive each other’s success. Finally, he talks about some of the players he would like to get in the Hall of Fame. It starts right around the ten-minute mark.