Albert Breer of The MMQB recently spoke with San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, head coach Kyle Shanahan, and the coach's father, Mike Shanahan. He learned more about the quarterback's time with Kyle's father, studying film and learning how to play quarterback within his head coach's offense.
It had just been about a year since Garoppolo was traded to the 49ers, and he suddenly found himself with an abundance of time on his hands. Garoppolo suffered an ACL injury in late September of last year and used his time while sidelined to become a student of the game; more specifically, a student of Shanahan's offense. That's where the elder Shanahan was able to help.
For three months, in October, November, and December, Garoppolo would sit down for four to five hours on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays to watch film with Mike Shanahan.
"As a quarterback, you always want to know the why, because if someone comes up to you and asks a question, you want to be able to answer it," Garoppolo told Breer. "So there's certain things, when I got traded here, they were just telling me, 'Learn this play, you don't need to know the whole play, just this part of it.' And then after that was over, you get more time to break it down and everything, and Mike did a phenomenal job with that."
There was no need, after all, for Garoppolo to sit down every day in meeting rooms as the healthy quarterbacks prepared for game days. Garoppolo was not going to play and would not get back onto the practice field again until the offseason. It wasn't wasted time for the quarterback, but it was time that could be put to better use.
"The coordinators were getting the other guys ready to play," Mike Shanahan said. "With Jimmy not playing, if he's sitting in the meetings as the third-team quarterback, that's totally different from sitting down for four, five hours a day to talk about the plays. That's what was fun for me, fun for Jimmy too."
As highly regarded as Garoppolo is, he still lacks something crucial in his quest to become a great NFL quarterback — experience. He has 10 starts under his belt, including just three last season before his injury. The hope was that Garoppolo would gain that much-needed experience last year, which did not happen.
"We've seen it in practice. But he's still got to go play quarterback," Kyle Shanahan told Breer last week. "There's going to be be ups and downs with that. And I'm expecting that. No one goes out there and just plays great. He started that way last year. He did some good things and some bad things in his first two-and-a-half games. We were ready to have some ebb-and-flow throughout the year, and to learn a lot, and then we missed that."
Still, Garoppolo believes some good came out of his injury, like his valuable time spent with Mike Shanahan and his ability to sit down and absorb everything about Kyle Shanahan's offense without having to worry about game plans or walk-thoughts.
The experience learning with Mike Shanahan is something that will, hopefully, help a healthy Garoppolo during the upcoming season.
Click here to read the entire article over at The MMQB.
H/t to Patrick Tulini for the find.