49ers vs. Texans: 5 players to watch in preseason Week 2
By Aaron Tan
No. 4: Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo
It feels weird ranking Jimmy GQ this low in a list.
He may be No. 4 on this list, but he is probably most fans’ No. 1 reason why they watch 49ers preseason games — and that is completely fine, as the Jimmy Garoppolo hype has almost reached a Steph Curry level in the Bay Area.
San Francisco 49ers
Personally, I am very intrigued in watching Garoppolo’s accuracy throwing the ball. In training camp, he was inconsistent tossing the pigskin around, sometimes completely missing his receivers and other times firing absolute dimes. That was pretty much the case in the 49ers’ first preseason game against the Cowboys, as Garoppolo finished the day 3-of-6 passing.
His first completion was a nice third-down conversion to rookie standout Richie James, but I’d give more credit on that one to James, who had to reach back a bit to snag the ball since it was behind him. His second completion was his best ball of the day, delivering a perfect strike to wide receiver Marquise Goodwin on the deep curl route while getting hit by DeMarcus Lawrence. His final completion of the day was just a dump-off pass to Jerick McKinnon.
Garoppolo’s incompletions were not pretty. One incompletion was an errantly thrown deep ball to tight end George Kittle that inadvertently caused his tight end to separate his shoulder, another one was a throw that was just a bit too high to Goodwin and his final incomplete pass was just an ugly pass to the sideline that wasn’t even close to his intended receiver.
This is honestly what I expected from Garoppolo from watching him in training camp. He is going to be inconsistent this year, and he probably won’t live up to the sky-high expectations set upon him, which is completely fine. This will only be his second year on the team and as a starter in this league. He’s going to have to encounter his share of bumps and bruises before unlocking his ability of becoming a truly elite quarterback, which I believe he has in him.
But of course I hope I’m wrong about Garoppolo. I hope that he takes the fast track and immediately emerges as a top quarterback in this league, and you know what? Maybe he will. The game on Saturday will be a little bit better of an indicator than last week’s game of whether or not he will live up to his high expectations this season.