Jimmy Garoppolo Says He Will Be the 49ers Week 1 Starter

SANTA CLARA -- Head coach Kyle Shanahan still hasn't named a starting quarterback for Week 1.
So Jimmy Garoppolo named himself the starter on Wednesday during his press conference with local reporters. Here's the transcript.
Q: At what point were you told or not told that you're the starting quarterback?
GAROPPOLO: "For a while. I told you guys a long time ago I had a pretty good feeling about it. I always kind of knew where I stood and everything. Now it's official, I guess."
Q: Are you happy with the level of communication you've received from the team?
GAROPPOLO: "Yeah. They did exactly what they're supposed to. Obviously it's a weird situation, but throughout all of it I tried to stay focused on myself, focused on getting this team better and putting us in the right positions.
Q: Did it feel like a competition?
GAROPPOLO: "Not to me, no. I went into it consistently every day with the same attitude. I mean, it's always a competition, but you're competiting against the defense in training camp, now you're competing this weekend against Detroit. That's kind of always where I've been with my head, and it has helped me stay steady throughout this whole thing."
Q: Do you feel more confident this year than years past?
GAROPPOLO: "Yeah. I love this supporting cast, honestly. Up front, those guys are playing well together, keeping things clean in the pocket. And then outside, we have a lot of speed and a lot of weapons. I'd say the confidence has gone up with the learning of the offense, having adapted to everything and being able to process things faster."
ME: How do you feel you performed in preseason and camp and where do you think your game is heading into Week 1?
GAROPPOLO: "I'm pretty satisfied with where it's at. Obviously, there are things to improve. You're always trying to fix little things, get guys on the same page as you seeing things out there. But overall, I felt pretty good with 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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