Jimmy Garoppolo is another year removed from the ACL injury that shortened his 2018 season. The San Francisco 49ers quarterback can focus on football and not have to worry about whether or not his knee will hold up in a game or how it will respond to that first big hit.
While everyone tried to downplay that aspect of last offseason's preparation, it had to always be in the back of Garoppolo's mind.
"It's night and day compared to where I was last year, at this time," Garoppolo told reporters on Tuesday via a video conference call. "At this time last year, it was more so getting back to being in a live pocket, having live bullets flying around me, and getting used to that. We're past that. I haven't really thought about it in a long time.
"As far as the mobility and things like that, it's whatever Kyle (Shanahan) calls for. I think my knee's in a good position. It's able to do whatever it needs to do, at this point."
Kyle Shanahan knows that being a year further removed from the devastating injury will only help expedite Garoppolo's development. The 49ers coach realizes that Garoppolo "got a hard deal" after the Super Bowl, as much of the blame for the game's loss was placed on the quarterback's shoulders. That was despite him playing well for most of the game.
Shanahan expects Garoppolo, who has just one full NFL season as a starter, to continue growing as a player. The coach wants Garoppolo to build off the impressive regular season that most critics tend to toss aside when analyzing the quarterback.
"Jimmy did some real good things, but he's just getting started," Shanahan said Thursday on KNBR's Tolbert, Krueger & Brooks show. "And that's why Jimmy's not a finished product. He's almost a second-year quarterback with a lot more mental experience because he's been around the league.
"But I'm excited for him to go into his second year, especially, last year when he came back, coming back from the ACL, just in training camp and stuff, he worked hard on all the mental stuff. But you can tell what a guy's concern is. When you're coming off an ACL, your concern is, 'Man, can I do this?' That takes a guy a while to get into stuff.
"Me seeing him now, talking to him on Zooms, but really just seeing him throwing with the wideouts on air, and getting into these walk-throughs, you can tell that he wasn't working on his ACL all offseason. He's been working on everything that he learned through his experiences of last season. And when you can do that, I don't see how you won't get better.
"Now, it's our job to make sure we keep getting everyone better around him, too."
You can listen to the entire conversation with Shanahan below.