QB Jimmy Garoppolo Press Conference

QB Jimmy Garoppolo

Press Conference – October 27, 2021

San Francisco 49ers

What’s these last couple of days been like for you as far as just getting back to work and probably shutting off the noise and focusing on yourself?

“Yeah. It’s been a good couple of days getting back to it, on to Chicago. It’s been a grind of a couple of days, but in a good way. It’s good to move on to the next opponent and get this week rolling. We’ve got a good defense and we’re going to their place. So it’ll be a good challenge for us.”

How difficult is that? Just to put a game like Sunday behind and move forward?

“Nothing crazy, I would say. I mean, every week’s like that, whether it’s a good or bad week, the week before come Monday morning, you’ve got to move on, look at everything, go through everything like you need to, but you’ve got to move on quickly in this league. It’s on to the next one.”

Your first start for the 49ers was in Chicago. This is the next trip back. What do you remember most from not just that start, but from how you played then and the four games after that?

“Well, we’ve come a long way. I mean, a lot’s happened in four years here. It’s pretty cool though. Just to go back there, talking to friends and family about it, and it’s a cool experience. You know, a lot of memories come back when I think to the last time we played them. But it’s a completely different team now, different coaching staff, different players. So it’ll be fun to get back there. It’ll be a hostile environment for sure.”

Head coach Kyle Shanahan mentioned that, and he said this at the time back then, but he kind of reminded us that it was a crash course for you. That a lot of what you guys were running was first time. Can you kind of take us back through what that was like? Because you did see a lot of success in those games, but there also wasn’t, I guess was a lot of that off-schedule, just because of how little knowledge of the offense you did have?

“I’d say it was a decent amount of off-schedule. I think there was a good amount of plays happening in rhythm, but yeah, I mean, I can remember times where I was learning something on the sideline for the first time and we were about to go run it in the next series. Thankfully I’ve come a long way since then. So the mental part of it is slowed down a ton. The verbiage of the offense has changed. So it’s completely different than it was back then just calling plays in general, running plays. So it’s different, but it’s nice to go back to those times and just rethink those through.”

In that game, this stuck with me, but regardless, this is going to go pretty poorly, but you were getting hit by like three guys and you threw like off your back foot over the middle to, I want to say former NFL WR Louis Murphy, who was very well covered. Do you remember that throw and you know, I don’t know if you rank your throws, but I mean, is that, that was pretty good?

“Thankfully I do remember that play, so that’s a good start, but no, it was, yeah, that was kind of a broken play. I forget who, what happened up front, but I remember the guy running free on my right side. Yeah. Sweet Lou was kind of sitting in the hole, found the hole of the defense and we made it come to life. Yeah. I mean, like I was saying that five-game stretch, there was a lot of plays like that, that were just, that’s not really where the ball is intended to go, but whether it was me not knowing the offense entirely, something up front, whatever it was, there were some makeshift plays like that, I guess you could say. But yeah, definitely ranks up there in one of the top throws I’ve ever had.”

Overall it went pretty well.

“Yeah, it was a good recovery.”

As the leader of the team, how do you keep the morale up and make sure that this doesn’t slide further as far as the losing streak goes and getting back on the winning track?

“I think like I was saying earlier, just moving on. That’s a big part of it. You know, you can’t dwell on it. It’s obviously in everyone’s head, that feeling that we had on Sunday night and you’ve got to use that to motivate you in a way. You’ve got to figure out whatever your process is throughout the week. You’ve got to use that to get you ready for this next game on Sunday. And I mean, if you just let those games drag back to back like that, you’re going to be in for a long year.”

In terms of your process, are you doing anything different now to maybe just change what’s kind of happened to the team the last four games? I know you didn’t play all four, but just kind of change what’s going on maybe mojo-wise?

“It’s not so much changing our process. It’s changing what we do on the field. We’ve got to go execute. We’re the players out, whatever eleven’s out on the field, whatever play’s called, we’ve got to go make that thing come to life and make the thing work. I’d say it’s more about that at this point, you know, getting the game plan down, getting in the details, the nitty gritty stuff. And once we do that, then we can go, we’ll be playing better on the field then.”

The last few years this team has always had a swag about it. Do you guys still have that or is it tough to have when you’ve lost four in a row?

“Yeah, I think when you’ve lost four in a row, you can’t lose who you are as a team and as a player in particular. I think that swagger that we have is going to come out when we start playing well. And it shows on the field. I mean, you see sparks of it when we’re out there. Sunday night, there were points where it was coming out on offense, defense, whatever it is. And we just have to get back to doing that more and more consistently.”

A follow-up on what you just said there, is it encouraging that you can point to those little things and say, or discouraging that you have a drive like you had in that first drive against the Colts and then somehow you can’t duplicate that as the game goes on?

“Yeah, I think that’s kind of the way we were looking at it. It’s we did some good things. We had some successful drives, some chunk plays that we wanted to get. But we’ve just got to do it consistently. And that’s going back, looking at what we did, how we did it. I think the coaches did a great job of that these last couple of days. And they’ve given us a good game plan so far. We’ll go out there and practice it today and get ready for Sunday.”

There were some clips from the all-22 where the ball goes one place and somebody else’s running free down in the middle. How do you explain that? And you know, does the read take you one place and you’re not supposed to look there or just what’s the process? And then when you watch it on the all-22 what goes through your mind?

“Well, I mean, if you miss someone, obviously, you know, wish you’d see the whole field and you’re like, I wish I had that one back. But yeah, it’s kind of coverage dictated. Each play is different, but coverage dictated man, zone, whatever it is. And you’ve just got to go through your process as a quarterback. If your read’s on the left side, on the right side, you’ve got to go through that. And yeah, would you love to have some back and see the entire field, you’d love to. But that’s part of playing the position. You’ve just got to see everything.”

One example of that in particular was the first interception when you threw to WR Deebo Samuel. Pre-snap, did you just see one-on-one, Deebo, I like that matchup, simple as that?

“Pretty much, yeah. They were in a one-high defense. So yeah, like even that one [WR] Mohamed [Sanu Sr.] should’ve been taken away by the free safety, he was just making a, doing whatever he wants type of play. But yeah, I had one-on-one with Deebo. I wish I threw it a little further on his back shoulder. Just hung inside a little bit.”

Will you have a lot of friends and family at the game on Sunday? And is there anything special about going back to play, you know, at this level, in the area where you grew up or is it kind of just business as usual at this point?

“No, there’s always a little something. Going home is always fun. Kind of where the first start happened here. I’ve got a lot of friends and family. I don’t even, it’s over 100 I know that. So it’ll be a fun crowd. That Chicago crowd’s ruthless though. We played in Philly this year. That was a pretty hostile environment. I’m sure this will be pretty similar to that, but it’ll be a fun Sunday.”