Kyle Shanahan responds to Chris Mortensen suggesting Jimmy Garoppolo isn’t mentally keeping up

ESPN's Chris Mortensen jumped onto the Russillo Show podcast with Ryen Russillo on Wednesday, and the topic of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo came up.

Now, in case you missed Monday night's game between the 49ers and Denver Broncos and the days' worth of headlines that followed, Garoppolo's first outing since his ACL injury 11 months ago wasn't pretty. The 49ers quarterback completed just one of his six pass attempts for zero yards and an interception. It earned him a 0.0 passer rating.

The performance followed a few days' worth of headlines, both local and national, surrounding a five-interception practice last week.

There, you are up to speed — in case you were having a technology cleanse over the past week.

Back to Mortensen, he commented on the podcast that he could envision the 49ers moving on from Garoppolo. That's not a new take, but the journalist added a little something to the reasoning.

"Obviously, he tore his ACL early in the season last year, but I think there's been some other things that I don't think Kyle Shanahan likes what he sees," Mortensen said. "I'm not sure if it's prep or — Kyle, I think he's one of the top three offensive coordinators in football […] Mentally, you'd better be able to keep up with Kyle. Kyle, I'm not sure he's a patient, patient guy, especially when it comes to quarterbacks.

"They're at the point where they want to win. John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan are kind of tied at the hip there. I'm anxious to see what happens at the start of the season with Garoppolo if they don't think he's ready."

Is there some concern that maybe Garoppolo is having trouble mentally keeping up with Shanahan? Is he still having a problem grasping the playbook and offense, as Mortensen suggests? He goes on to question whether or not Garoppolo will be the starter for the 49ers' game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on September 8.

"I heard it hasn't been pretty," Mortensen adds. "I heard what we've seen in preseason is kind of what we were seeing in practice a bit."

That last comment would go along with what New England Patriots analyst Scott Zolak said on Thursday, calling Garoppolo "one of the worst practice quarterbacks we've had here."


Head coach Kyle Shanahan joined KNBR on Friday morning and was asked about Mortensen's comments. Is Garoppolo still trying to grasp his playbook and offense?

"I think learning the playbook is done," Shanahan said on the "Murph and Mac" show. "You can learn the playbook pretty fast. It's not like we're doing brain surgery here. You learn the playbook pretty fast. It's about performing it consistently. The way that happens is you play in games, you get a lot of playing time, you go through some ups and downs.

"Jimmy has had 10 career games. That was one of the most disappointing things for me personally. What I was looking forward to last year was knowing, alright, this is going to be the first season Jimmy gets to go in as a starter and gets to play a season as a true NFL quarterback.

"He only got to play two-and-a-half games. That was the most frustrating part. Not that he doesn't get to learn the offense of anything, that he doesn't get to go rep the offense. And now you get to take a whole year off and miss pretty much all of OTAs — he was only allowed to do 7-on-7, which is not real football — and then you throw him into training camp full-go.

"He's had some real good weeks; he's had some real good practices. But as (with) everyone, it is up and down. It's very well-documented that he had one very bad practice, the five-interception practice. Unfortunately, that was followed by not a great outing from our whole starting offense and the 12 plays they got.

"I think it's pretty normal this time of year for people to blow that up, but it is what it is. I think it's pretty obvious; the guy is coming back from an ACL, he hasn't played in a lot of games, and he needs to get out there and play football."

Fans will get a lengthier look at Garoppolo on Saturday against the Kansas City Chiefs. The plan is for the starters, including Garoppolo, to play the entire (or close to it) first half.

Shanahan said he isn't too concerned even if his starting quarterback has another poor outing against the Chiefs. That's what preseason is for. The coach views these games as an extension of practice, except defenders are allowed to get their hands on you now.

Added Shanahan, "We're real confident this year. We've got a good team. We've got the best team we've had here in three years, and we plan on getting better each week throughout the season and plan on Jimmy throughout the season getting better with our team. Hopefully, we'll be at the top of our game coming to the end, and we get in the tournament for the playoffs."

You can listen to the entire conversation with Shanahan below.