Jimmy Garoppolo Offers Seahawks Solace in 49ers' NFC Championship Loss to Rams

While the Seahawks failed to make the playoffs—let alone reach the NFC championship game—Sunday’s All-NFC West matchup between the Rams and the 49ers ended with solace for Seahawks fans.

San Francisco head coach and offensive mind Kyle Shanahan could hide quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo no longer. Typically, the 49ers are one of the best teams in the NFL at using the run game and run-action to ease their quarterback’s task. Garoppolo is also good at these throws. On occasion, they require him to make a timing throw to convert on third down.

Yet the Rams stifled the rushing attack to the tune of 20 attempts for 50 yards—a pitiful 2.5 yards per carry average. As the 49ers were left desperately trying to move the ball on offense, the ultimate, inescapable importance of the quarterback position became an unavoidable obstacle. They became one-dimensional in the worst possible way.

Garoppolo completed 16 of his 30 passes for 232 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. The contrast of Matthew Stafford’s final stat line emphasizes the point; the Rams passer went 31 of 45 for 337 yards, two touchdowns and one early interception.

Garoppolo was placed into purer pass situations without the threat of the run—no longer in the run-appearance formations and away from the run-action set-up. The 49ers were shut out in the fourth quarter, surrendering 13 points as they fell 20-17. The slip was reminiscent of another Garoppolo special on the big stage: Super Bowl LIV.

Sunday's warning signs were there from the first drive, with Garoppolo missing a wide open George Kittle down the middle of the field as the offense went three-and-out.

Overthrow to an open Kittle on third and 7. SF will punt as teams trade three-and-outs.
— Jourdan Rodrigue (@JourdanRodrigue) January 30, 2022

The SkySportsNFL studio worried this would be brought up in a 49ers defeat, and here we are.

Heck, Garoppolo occasionally threatened his offense-plummeting negatives throughout the season and postseason, including terrible picks versus the Cowboys and Packers. It was just that San Francisco managed to survive until now. Garoppolo’s last play meltdown, in which he desperately tried to keep the third down alive with All-Pro defensive lineman Aaron Donald wrapped around him, was a culmination of who he has shown us to be. It was not, like his past glimpses of chaos, a result of his shoulder or thumb injuries.

AARON DONALD CREATES THE TURNOVER. #RamsHouse #NFLPlayoffs

📺: #SFvsLAR on FOX
📱: https://t.co/vywGt5Kgfz pic.twitter.com/pcltmPm9EP
— NFL (@NFL) January 31, 2022

In truth, this game should not have been close. Los Angeles head coach Sean McVay’s unusual game management and situational play-calling aided San Francisco, as did some terrible drops from the Rams—most notably Ben Skowronek’s touchdown clanger in the first half.

Trey Lance—the No. 3 pick of last April's draft—waits patiently for 2022. Shanahan was asked postgame about the future of Garoppolo and his answer was predictably non-committal.

“I love Jimmy,” Shanahan said. “I’m not gonna sit here and make a farewell statement. That’s the last thing on my mind. ... I love coaching Jimmy.”

Tonight should be the final indicator of permanent change. As FOX’s Joe Buck and Troy Aikman mentioned on the broadcast, Garoppolo is likely to be traded as Lance takes the starter role in his second season. Garoppolo enters the final year of his contract in 2022—a $26,950,000 figure with crucially zero percent guaranteed. The assets the 49ers gave up for Lance, who turns 22 years old in May? Their first-round picks in 2021, 2022 and 2023, in addition to their third-round pick in 2022. Those now belong to the Dolphins, who held Lance's eventual draft slot before San Francisco traded its way up.

The 49ers were a 10-7 team the Seahawks managed to beat on the road and at home. In that first matchup, Lance came into the game and looked shaky and admittedly unprepared. While Garoppolo is undoubtedly a veteran presence who knows how to run the offense—along with being a respected teammate in the locker room—it remains unusual that Lance’s increased mobility did not see him win the starting job. His Week 17 start later in the season versus the Houston Texans featured good and bad faced against a terrible opponent.