The dichotomy of Jimmy Garoppolo is well-known by now. On one side, detractors believe he isn’t good enough to win a Super Bowl – or to even lead the San Francisco 49ers on a deep playoff run again. On the other, Jimmy G took the 49ers to the Super Bowl previously and was one quarter away from winning it all.
A large portion of that collapse in Super Bowl LIV can be pinned on Garoppolo’s mistakes, but two years later, that’s neither here nor there. What matters is that Garoppolo and the 49ers are knocking on the door, even though many of the same questions around his ability persist. Garoppolo’s performance this season has been adequate, for lack of a better word. He’s consistently been himself – and in the past, that’s been enough to help the 49ers win football games.
They’ll need that and more if they’re to have a hope in hell against the Green Bay Packers in the Lambeau cold on Saturday night. And paramount to that success or failure is the Niners ability to keep the pocket clean. While the outcome of the game isn’t quite as simple as that, the reality is there are two very different sides to Garoppolo, and the fine line that separates Jeykll and Hyde lies in the protection.
Luckily for San Francisco, they’re equipped with one of the better offensive lines in the NFL. They have the seventh-best pass-blocking grade, per PFF, and rank a respectable 14th in pass-block win rate. Garoppolo hasn’t been pressured much this year – he’s seen pressure on just 28.9 percent of his dropbacks this season, the seventh-lowest pressure rate in the NFL, per PFF. That’s promising. Even if the Packers have a potent defensive front that will feature Za’Darius Smith for the first time since the opening week of the season.
Let’s talk about that Packers defensive front for a moment because they’re a significant obstacle for the 49ers to overcome. Third-year pro Rashan Gary is second in the NFL in pass rush win rate and has 81 total pressures on the season, while interior defensive lineman Kenny Clark is about as disruptive as any defender in the NFL. All that talent will surely muddy the waters of a clean pocket.
When the two teams met in Week 3, the Packers were able to pressure Garoppolo 13 times – a key reason why Green Bay was able to prevail 30-28. That wasn’t just a one-off, though. The 49ers are just 2-4 in games where Garoppolo is pressured more than 8 times in a game. It’s not coincidental. Garoppolo has the worst grade in the NFL when pressured (28.3) and his numbers fall off in numerous key areas.
The grade isn’t kind to Garoppolo, but it’s not that bad things always happen to him in a pressured pocket, it’s more to do with the fact that good things don’t happen. Big Time Throws are passes with excellent ball placement and timing and are more likely to be thrown down field or into tighter windows. Garoppolo is the only quarterback in the NFL not to record a Big Time Throw when pressured this season – for comparison sake, Josh Allen leads the NFL with 20 BTT’s when pressured. That could well be down to his average depth of target being 29th in the NFL in those scenarios.
Garoppolo doesn’t make many BTT’s in general, though. The question is how much of that is down to ability instead of scheme, but that’s an entirely different argument. He does, however, have the third-most Turnover Worthy Plays in the NFL when pressured (15). You don’t need to be the next Brandon Staley to figure out those numbers are worrying.
They also lend credence to the original point: the 49ers have to protect Garoppolo on Saturday night. Kyle Shanahan will likely lean on, what can often feel like, his transdimensional running game, but this won’t be a repeat of the 2019 NFC Championship Game. The Packers’ defense has struggled against the run in recent weeks, but they’re a better unit than the one that gave up 285 yards on the ground.
Shanahan will do whatever he can to put Garoppolo and the 49ers in a position to succeed, and the key to that success starts and ends with maintaining a clean pocket for their enigmatic signal caller.
-Thomas Valentine
Twitter: @thomasvalenfine