Jimmy Garoppolo has more expectations on his shoulders in 2018 thanks to how last season unfolded down the stretch. The San Francisco 49ers' franchise quarterback for the foreseeable future finished 2017 by leading the team to a five-game winning streak after just one victory in the previous 11 attempts.
Bleacher Report's Gary Davenport attempted to project the 2018 statistics for every starting quarterback in the NFL. During the five starts last season, Garoppolo completed 118 of his 176 pass attempts for 1,542 yards with six touchdowns and five interceptions. If you were to project a 16-game season based on those numbers, it would come out to 4,934 yards with 19 touchdowns and 16 interceptions.
"Garoppolo's biggest potential roadblock in 2018 might be expectations," wrote Davenport within the feature. "Sooner or later he's going to do something he's never done in the NFL—lose a game."
Davenport may not predict Garoppolo to pass for as many yards as our 16-game projection, but he does have him with a better touchdown to interception ratio. Davenport envisions the 49ers quarterback completing 381 of his 585 attempts (65.1 percent) for 4,323 yards. While Garoppolo's interception count remains at 16, he also projects the quarterback throwing 25 touchdowns.
"If Davenport's projection proves true, Garoppolo will be the first 49ers quarterback to surpass 4,200 passing yards since Jeff Garcia in 2000 (4,278 yards and 31 touchdowns)," notes 49ers team reporter Keiana Martin.
During the 49ers' State of the Franchise event last week, head coach Kyle Shanahan discussed his expectations for Garoppolo during the upcoming season.
"He played pretty good in those five games (to end 2017)," Shanahan said. "Being a successful quarterback in this league is about sustained success. Jimmy's had seven games (five starts with the 49ers and two with the New England Patriots), and he's played very good in all seven of those games.
"I think we all know, eventually, there won't be a good one. Hopefully, that won't be for a long time, but Jimmy's really worked this offseason. It's been great so far."
Davenport only projects seven NFL quarterbacks to pass for more yards than Garoppolo in 2018.
| Quarterback | Team | Yds | TDs | INTs |
| Tom Brady | NE | 4,605 | 30 | 10 |
| Philip Rivers | LAC | 4,515 | 30 | 13 |
| Drew Brees | NO | 4,460 | 29 | 11 |
| Ben Roethlisberger | PIT | 4,460 | 29 | 15 |
| Aaron Rodgers | GB | 4,428 | 35 | 7 |
| Matt Ryan | ATL | 4,410 | 27 | 11 |
| Jameis Winston | TB | 4,335 | 26 | 14 |
| Jimmy Garoppolo | SF | 4,323 | 25 | 16 |
H/T to 49ers team reporter Keiana Martin for the find.
