Jimmy Garoppolo Isn't Sure if He'll Play Against the Packers

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SANTA CLARA -- Once again, Jimmy Garoppolo has an excuse for a poor performance.
When he struggled against the Titans, we learned the next day that he sprained his thumb during that game. And when he struggled Sunday in a won over the Dallas Cowboys, we learned Monday that he sprained his shoulder in that game.
Here's what the injury-prone quarterback said Tuesday about his latest injury.
Q: Are you confident you'll play against the Packers?
GAROPPOLO: "We'll feel it out throughout the week. Feeling good right now."
Q: You have two injuries now. How have you handled injuries in extreme cold?
GAROPPOLO: "I've played in the cold my whole life, so I don't think it will be anything too crazy, but just learning to adjust, changing whatever you have to change, but that's what this week of practice is for. We're in a good spot."
Q: Kyle Shanahan said you hurt the shoulder in the second quarter. There was a hit when it looked like you were falling to the side and used your hand to brace yourself and then pulled it back. How much are you thinking about your thumb in the moment?
GAROPPOLO: "I got thrown down, went to put my hand out, had it in my mind that if my thumb hit, I wouldn't know what was going to happen, so I tried to catch it with my shoulder and jammed the shoulder up. That was about it."
Q: Your performance in the first half wasn't as good as your performance in the second half. How much did that have to do with your shoulder injury?
GAROPPOLO: "Being a quarterback, the shoulder affects every throw. It definitely had some impact. But if I'm out there, I have to still make the plays that I normally make. No excuses. This injury is what it is. We're all dealing with stuff now."
Q: What hurts more, the shoulder or the thumb?
GAROPPOLO: "Yes, haha. They're pretty close."
Q: As far as the shoulder and the impact it had in Dallas, there was a play in the second half that was a short throw to George Kittle and it bounced. Was the shoulder affecting you on that one?
GAROPPOLO: "Every throw was impacted. It's a shoulder injury. Any type of throw, you're going to feel. My body is learning to adapt to it."

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.
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