On September 23, the San Francisco 49ers lost to the Kansas City Chiefs and lost their franchise quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo for the season. The latter was much worse.
Yesterday the QB, who is recovering from surgery to repair his torn ACL, talked to the Bay Area media for the first time since getting hurt. Garoppolo confirmed that his surgery, which took place in Los Angeles, went well and that he’ll be off crutches in a couple of weeks.
“The ACL was the only one that got torn so that was a good sign,” Garoppolo said. “…[T]hey fixed up a couple little things and I think it’s been going really good, though. The stitches are out. Scars healed up quickly and so we can move on in the pool stuff and really move forward now.”
Moving forward includes doing what he can to help the struggling 49ers off-the-field, while he works to get back on it.
“I try to go to as many meetings as I can,” said Garoppolo. “Obviously our schedules are a little different…but any input that I can put in to help the guys. If they have any questions at all I try to help as much as I can and just be a positive reinforcement in the locker room.”
Positive reinforcement as the 1-6 Niners head to Arizona tomorrow to take on the Cardinals and try for a second win.
“Jimmy is definitely one of our leaders,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said. “…[O]bviously he can’t go through the season and get the experience. But, there’s still a lot of experience he can get. He needs to go through the game plan each week, prepare like he is playing at least mentally, get something out of the games, know what you’re expecting to go into the game expecting, see what happens differently in the game, see what he can learn at that time when he comes into a Monday meeting and we talk about what went different than what we were expecting, how you can adjust to those things. Those are things he has to go through fully, mentally. You would love for him to do it both physically and mentally. One was taken away from him. He’s still got to get something out of this and you can get a lot on the other half of it.”
For someone who is used to physical part of football every week, focusing on just the mental part is definitely an adjustment, especially on game day.
“It’s strange,” Garoppolo said. “The first couple [games as the injury] I was down in LA and just watching them on the couch and then this last one I got to go to the game and sit in the box and watch it. And it’s a completely different perspective. I mean you feel like a coach almost. So there’s little things like that that I’ve tried to find silver lining of how I could take advantage of this extra time. I’ll never be given time like this again. So you have to take advantage of what you’re given, I guess.”
After the injury, there was a lot of talk about what Garoppolo could have done differently, if he just should have gone out of bounds, but what’s done is done. The only thing to do now to rehab and look to next season.
“Initially you think about that stuff,” said Garoppolo. “You think of every situation possible. Plays before it. All that stuff. It would eventually get to a point where you have to accept it and start moving on.”
2019 will be here before you know it. Go Niners!