Jimmy Garoppolo: What 49ers QB did right, wrong vs. Cardinals in Week 9

How Jimmy Garoppolo played poorly in 49ers loss vs. Cardinals

No quarterback can play a perfect game, even if there’s such thing as a perfect passer rating.

As for Jimmy Garoppolo, his late fourth-quarter interception also posed the same kind of questions that have accompanied him throughout his 49ers career: Why can’t he see the lurking linebacker or safety over the middle of the field?

Case in point, Cardinals safety Budda Baker:

Generally speaking, throwing into triple coverage isn’t ideal even if the Niners were in all-out desperation mode.

Again, however, that one play didn’t dictate the outcome of the game. If anything, the sheer pressure Arizona brought against Garoppolo was the bigger X-factor.

Jimmy Garoppolo, 49ers crumble against Cardinals pass rush

A week after surrendering zero sacks and zero quarterback hits against the Bears, San Francisco’s offensive line put forth an abysmal effort against a Cardinals pass rush that was still without defensive end J.J. Watt but managed to feast with EDGEs Chandler Jones and Markus Golden to the tune of five sacks.

Including this one, where Garoppolo should have sensed the pressure to his front and right and had an open fullback, Kyle Juszczyk, cutting into his vision from left to right:

It needed to be a quick throw. But that’s the kind of play one would expect a quarterback to make when under pressure. Garoppolo didn’t. Plain and simple.

According to Next Gen Stats, a full 50 percent of Garoppolo’s dropbacks had a time-to-throw mark of more than 2.5 seconds, that magical invisible line where the pass rush is expected to get home at any moment.

Garoppolo’s time to throw in the game was 2.66 seconds overall, which isn’t terrible. But on times where he held onto the ball for more than 2.5 seconds, the average was a whopping 3.3 seconds before he was able to get the ball out.

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Not surprisingly, four of the five sacks taken were on plays where he was holding onto the ball for more than 2.5 seconds.

True, there were some moments of “backyard” football on Sunday, and some of those moments involved Jimmy G’s success. But he also showcased the reasons why he’s still not in tune with facing pressure.

If anything, that’s where Garoppolo came up short in a big way in Week 9.