QB Jimmy Garoppolo Press Conference

QB Jimmy Garoppolo

Press Conference – September 8, 2021

San Francisco 49ers

At what point were you told or not told that you would be the starting quarterback this season?

“For a while. I told you guys a long time ago, I had a pretty good feeling about it. Kind of joked about it, but yeah, I always kind of knew where I stood and everything. And yeah, now it’s official, I guess.”

Did you know from the beginning of March 26th when the trade goes down, were you happy with just the level of communication that the coaching staff and the front office had with you?

“Yeah. I think that they did exactly what they were supposed to and everything. Obviously it’s a weird situation in and of itself, but just I don’t know, throughout all of it try to stay focused on myself and focused on getting this team better and putting us in the right position.”

Head coach Kyle Shanahan said it really wasn’t an official competition, but did it feel like a competition?

“Not to me, no. I go into it pretty consistently every day. Just the same attitude. I mean, it’s always a competition, but you’re competing against the defense during training camp, now we’re competing against Detroit and this week and everything. But yeah, that’s kind of always where I’ve been with my head and it helped me stay steady throughout this whole thing.”

I’m just wondering, was there a point where you say to yourself, okay, I’m not going to focus on those other things and only the things that I can control?

“Yeah. Long time ago, probably when I first got into football. I don’t know. I’ve always had that mindset and I know it sounds real cliche and everything, but I don’t know, I’ve had times in my career where you start focusing on other things and you get distracted and it takes away from your play out here. So kind of in the back of my head, I had that already stapled in and just had to keep staying with that throughout all of camp and everything.”

Having gone through the whole offseason and all the questions you’re getting on this, how excited are you to be here and actually have a game look forward to?

“Oh yeah, this is the fun part now. We get to go out there game plan and competing all the stuff you want to do. I mean, talking to you guys it’s great and I mean, don’t get me wrong, but at the end of the day, we want to get out there, go play some football and compete.”

How do you feel you performed in preseason and in camp and where do you feel your game is at heading into Week 1?

“I’m pretty satisfied with where it’s at. Obviously, things to improve. You’re always trying to fix little things up, get guys on the same page as you, seeing things out there and things like that. But overall, I felt pretty good with it.”

Do you have to emphasize dealing with crowd noise and things like that given it’s been a little bit of time, or is it more similar to just like riding a bike?

“Yeah. The first couple of days it was a little weird, you know, getting back into the silent cadence and things like that. But yeah, I don’t know. Me and [C] Alex [Mack] got into a pretty good rhythm pretty quickly. We’ll fine tune it this week and get everyone on the same page even more so, but yeah, we’ve worked on it a good amount.”

You said the first day of camp the ankle isn’t an issue in your mind, but were there little steps you had to take even in camp just to make sure you were feeling it more?

“More so that was like OTAs honestly. I think OTAs kind of confirmed where my body was at and how I felt physically and then training camp it was just kind of coming out here and just getting after it. Training camp’s a grind and it tests your whole body. I mean, it tested the ankle a couple of days, but overall I felt pretty good.”

Do you feel more confident this year than maybe two years ago because you were coming off the ACL and now you have a pretty healthy supporting cast that’s strong?

“Yeah. Love the supporting cast. Honestly. It’s upfront, those guys have been playing well together. Just keeping things clean in the pocket. And then on the outside, just, we’ve got a lot of speed, a lot of weapons, and it’ll be fun to see how Kyle uses them in the offense and game plan and everything. But yeah, I’d say the confidence it’s really just gone up with the learning of the offense, having adapted to everything and being able to process things faster I’d say.”

What is your scouting report on the Lions?

“A very talented group. New head coach and everything so new D-coordinator. I’m sure they’ll have a couple of things for us that we haven’t seen, but a fast group, played against a couple of these guys before, [Detroit Lions LB] Jamie Collins. They’re a fast group and pretty instinctive. So we’ll have to be on our game.”

How do you go about preparing for a team where you don’t know exactly what you’re going to face?

“You kind of play the game of you don’t want to over prepare for things, you don’t want under prepare. I don’t know. There’s some guessing involved in it because they don’t want to show everything in preseason, but you don’t want to assume too much. So I know that’s kind of a bad answer, but yeah, you’re kind of in between, you’re trying to play both sides of the fence and just prepare for everything almost.”

I was going to say, does your offense kind of have the rules where even if you don’t specifically prepare for something you know how to prepare?

“Yeah. I mean, there’s your core plays that you have and that you’ve run out here and that you get good at over time, OTAs, training camp and those. But yeah, you want to do some guessing, I guess, at points, but you can’t go chasing ghosts.”

Every team takes on its own personality in terms of the locker room and has its own personality. I’m curious three years into his career, where do you see LB Fred Warner in that pecking order? He’s only three years into his career but has a pretty solid reputation, but what more does he stand to gain?

“He sets the tone. He sets the tone on the field and in the locker room and in different ways, but it’s impressive. Just like you said, a guy who’s only been in it three years. I can remember myself in my third year. It was a lot different than how he is. So he’s a guy that you love to be around, sets the example for the younger guys kind of, you know, lets them know what the standard is in this locker room. And he’s one of those guys you want him in your foxhole with you.”

I think it was three years ago against the Lions you created national tight ends day. Can you go back to that moment? How much TE George Kittle has really just taken that over himself?

“Yeah. I mean, he kind of stole it from me, but it’s all good, I guess. No, it was kind of just something that happened out there. I think it was [former TE Garrett] Celek and George at the time. I don’t know. Just love those guys, love the energy they bring and they deserve a day.”

Do you go back and look at Week 1 or think about Week 1s, the last three that you’ve had? The statistics haven’t been great in Week 1 for you guys offensively. Is that part of the not knowing exactly how to prepare or game plan for a new opponent?

“I think it could be part of it. I think we’ve just got to come out ready to roll. You know, you get in this lull of training camp at some point and you can’t really let it drag you down too much I guess. But you know, I think we’ve had a good mindset. We’ve had a good group that come out here and work every day and hopefully we’ll have a good week of practice. I think that’s where it starts for us. And if we go do that, I think we’ll have a good performance Sunday.”