All 49ers

The Final Grade For the 2021 49ers Quarterbacks

Why did the 49ers pass so infrequently despite having an All Pro wide receiver (Deebo Samuel), an All Pro tight end (George Kittle), and an elite third option (Brandon Aiyuk)?
Grant Cohn|
The Final Grade For the 2021 49ers Quarterbacks
The Final Grade For the 2021 49ers Quarterbacks

In this story:

San Francisco 49ers

This is Jimmy Garoppolo's grade, because Trey Lance hardly played in 2021.

And on the surface, it seems Garoppolo played well this past season. His 12.7 yards per completion led the entire NFL. His 68.3 completion percentage ranked 6th. His 98.7 quarterback rating ranked 9th. And his 53.4 QBR ranked 13th. Solid numbers. And he won 9 regular season games and played in the NFC Championship for the second time in three seasons. Impressive.

But these statistics mostly reflect the excellent supporting cast and coaching on the 49ers. The number that best reflects Garoppolo's value is this: The 49ers averaged just 29.4 passes per game -- second fewest in the NFL.

Why did the 49ers pass so infrequently despite having an All Pro wide receiver (Deebo Samuel), an All Pro tight end (George Kittle), and an elite third option (Brandon Aiyuk)?

Because Garoppolo is a high-risk, medium-reward quarterback. He threw just 20 touchdown passes despite playing with elite talent around him. His touchdown percentage was 4.5, which was the league average in 2021. But his interception percentage was 2.7 -- above the league average of 2.4.

This is why the 49ers have to run the ball into loaded boxes so frequently. This is why Samuel had to moonlight as a running back, a move which could shorten his career.

Despite all these limitations, Garoppolo wins more than he loses, and a team certainly can get to the playoffs with him. But when he gets there, he's awful. This past season, his playoff passer rating was 72.7, he threw 2 touchdown passes and 3 interceptions. Sure, he was injured, but he put up virtually the same numbers in the playoffs two seasons ago: 75.9 rating, 2 touchdown passes, 3 interceptions.

Garoppolo might be a great leader in the locker room, but he's a net negative on the field, especially in the postseason. Some team will trade for him this offseason and be extremely disappointed.

GRADE: C-MINUS

Published
Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

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.

Share on XFollow grantcohn
Home/News