Fantasy football: Early stock watch for 49ers roster in 2018
By Peter Panacy
Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo
Needless to say, Jimmy Garoppolo has entirely changed the outlook of the 49ers franchise.
Sure, there are some things to be worried about. He has just seven starts under his belt, five with the Niners, and owned a 7-to-5 touchdown-to-interception ratio in San Francisco last season.
San Francisco 49ers
Interceptions hurt fantasy football owners, but there are reasons not to be so concerned there.
For starters, Garoppolo was operating with a very limited knowledge of Kyle Shanahan’s complex playbook. Garoppolo now gets a full offseason to master the terminology and build continued rapport with his receiving targets.
Speaking of those, which we’ll get to some later, the quarterback’s best wide receiver was Marquise Goodwin, who never crested 500 yards in a season before his 962-yard, two-touchdown campaign a year ago.
Yeah, things should be much better for Garoppolo in 2017. Especially if you believe the hype Pro Football Focus offered on San Francisco’s new franchise guy.
Garoppolo had 87.9 fantasy points over five-plus starts last season, per ESPN. That equates to slightly less than 17.6 points per game. Considering the Seattle Seahawks’ Russell Wilson led all quarterbacks in fantasy points last year (347.9, an average of 21.7 per game), it shouldn’t be too hard to speculate Garoppolo gets closer to that per-game rate.