QB Jimmy Garoppolo Press Conference

QB Jimmy Garoppolo

Press Conference – September 29, 2021

San Francisco 49ers

What’s your process as far as putting the game Sunday night to bed, getting all you can out of that and then moving forward?

“Same as always. Attack it pretty hard. Monday after the game broke everything down saw the corrections we needed to make and on to Seattle. We’ve been into it for a little while now, ready to get out to practice and get back to it.”

What did you think of your own performance from Sunday night?

“Pretty good. The turnovers, obviously got to eliminate those, but just the way we battled in the second half, gave ourselves a chance at the end. As an offense, you don’t want to have to do that, you know, drive down at the end of the game and be in that situation. We would’ve liked to perform better in the first half, but there was a lot of positives to take out of that. So, there’s good and bad that you take from it.”

After the game you mentioned toeing the line and how you were managing the clock. When you went back and watched it, was there anything you would do differently in terms of clock management?

“In the heat of the battle, yeah let the play clock run for a little longer. I don’t know how much of a difference that would make, but there was just some situational football that I think as a team we learned how we can do better. If [FB Kyle Juszczyk] Juice gets tackled at the one, I mean, it’s a whole different story. There’s a ton of that stuff. But as an offense you’re trying to score. And so to do that in the final 30 seconds or so, that’s what we were trying to do.”

Were you aware that there were 12 seconds left on the play clock when you snapped it and were you not trying to shave seconds, were you not thinking that way at that point?

“Yeah, that’s kind of what I was saying. Hindsight is 2020. Yeah, would’ve loved to run it down to one second, but you’re toeing that line of you’ve got them on their heels. We were going with some tempo. I know exactly what you’re saying. It’s a tough line to play with, but yeah, I wish I would have let some time run off the clock, wish Juice would have gotten tackled at the one, but it is what it is. That’s why we play the game.”

Head coach Kyle Shanahan said some of the reasons for the slow starts is just the entire offense isn’t playing particularly well in the first quarters over the last two weeks. What can you do as a quarterback to, I don’t know, put your guys in a better position or play better yourself?

“I think just, it really comes down to getting the play run the right way. I think just little details with it. Even if they show us something that we haven’t really planned for as an offense, we still have to be able to execute it. So I think there’s a million little things that we’ve got to do, coaches, players, but at the end of the day it’s all of us working together.”

As far as the run game goes, are the defenses giving you guys fronts and looks that are tough to run against at this point?

“Different, I would say. Yeah, you scout things, the coaches do a great job all week of that and the game comes and you’ve got to react to what they deal you. So it’s a bit of just executing the tough looks that maybe we didn’t plan for.”

Were you expecting to possibly see Tampa Bay Buccaneers CB Richard Sherman this week on the other side of the ball? Did you have any interaction with him, like maybe even try to get them to come back here?

“Not recently, no. Kind of been swamped with the season and everything. But yeah, I mean, there were rumors, you hear about all that stuff with the injuries and things. But, happy for him that he gets another opp out there in Tampa. I wish it would’ve been here, but it was what it is.”

Speaking of getting off to a strong start in games, what’s the conversation like with you and Kyle when you decide on your openers? I would imagine there’s not a game you ever gone into where you think, oh, we’re running some really crappy plays here at the beginning. How do you like through the process of a week kind of help Kyle construct how you’re going to open a game?

“Well, he has his own process too, and you don’t want to mess with that too much. He’s had success with it in the past. So he kind of handles the openers. As far as us, it’s more of just trying to anticipate what we’re going to see. You do all this scouting and things like that, but once you get out there on Sunday, you might get the look you plan for, you might get something that you’ve never even talked about. And I think it’s just the balance of that as players, we’ve got to be able to execute under whatever circumstances.”

You’ve used different receivers and different running backs because of injuries and positions being a little bit in flux. With that in mind, how big has WR Deebo Samuel been for you guys in terms of consistency and when you have been able to move the ball and what have you seen in him in this year as opposed to the last two?

“Deebo has been huge. He really has. Pass game, run game, blocking he does a great job too. He doesn’t even get noticed for it. He’s come a long way in all those, but above all that, what I really noticed is just his leadership, how he sets the tone for that group. The receivers, really all the skill positions in general on our offense, he kind of gets everyone going. You need a guy like that, a tone setter. We’ve got a couple of other guys like that too, but Deebo has really embraced that role this year and I appreciate him for that.”

One criticism of your game is that you maybe don’t challenge defenses vertically or to the boundary as much as you possibly could. Do you think that’s a fair criticism?

“No. I mean, I just go with the plan that’s given. I think we’ve stretched them pretty well in some different aspects, but just whatever play’s called I’ll go out there and execute it.”

You had a pediatric cancer patient out there the other day. How did you get involved in that and how did that start?

“It kind of started over this offseason actually. Me and my brothers, I’ve been wanting to do it for a couple of years now. Last year was tough with the COVID situation so I couldn’t really do that, but I was really thrilled about it. We had our boy David come out, I got to know him pretty well, got to meet him before the pre-game and talked to him. It was a really cool opportunity. I love doing little things like that. Especially game day. You could tell you don’t get to experience that every day as a kid. So whenever you get the chance to do that is pretty cool.”