Jimmy Garoppolo did not look healthy during the San Francisco 49ers' 43-17 loss to the Miami Dolphins on Sunday. It looked like the high-ankle sprain he suffered three weeks earlier impacted his ability to throw the football. Head coach Kyle Shanahan informed Garoppolo at halftime that his day was done.
There has been a lot of speculation whether or not Garoppolo would return for the 49ers' Week 6 matchup against the Los Angeles Rams. The team could use an effective quarterback, which Garoppolo wasn't against the Dolphins. More important, however, is that the 49ers could use a healthy Garoppolo down the stretch.
It sounds like Shanahan is hoping to have Garoppolo out of the field against the Rams on Sunday night.
"Jimmy came in good (on Monday)," Shanahan informed reporters. "I know he's sore from the first half. I think his ankle's a little bit sore, and his body a little bit from some of the hits that he had, but nothing that made it worse. It was like you expected after a game. Nothing too bad happened. We got him out of there before that did.
"We'll see how he is on Wednesday. I expect him to be at least the same, if not better. So, hopefully, he can get a week of that and have no setbacks (on) Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and hopefully, we get him out there Sunday night."
C.J. Beathard replaced Garoppolo against Miami. Shanahan said the decision was made to protect the starting quarterback, who had already been sacked three times. The 49ers, after all, had a significant deficit to overcome in the second half, and Shanahan knew that meant throwing the football often.
To most, it looked like Garoppolo should not have been playing if there was any concern whether or not the quarterback could protect himself. He had only gone through one full practice — a Friday session that is typically lighter than those which precede it. Garoppolo was limited during the two earlier practices.
"He started out Wednesday, like they all do coming off a high-ankle (sprain), looked a lot better Thursday, no soreness from it," Shanahan explained. "Looked good on Friday. Looked good in pre-game warm-ups, so there was nothing that you saw in practice that would have kept him out.
"If the game was going a little bit differently, I would have kept them in that game also. It wasn't that his ankle was hurt too bad to where he couldn't function and play, but it was definitely prohibiting him. You could tell how he was throwing, just mechanically doing a little bit different than he normally does. When I do see that with my own eyes, and then when I talk to a guy when he comes off the field and ask him, and he kind of echoes similar to the same stuff, I know it's going to be tough for him to throw the way he normally does.
"And then when me, as a coach, I can see where the game is going, what the score is, what's going on in front of me, I know that we're going to have to be throwing a lot in this game to get back into it. And that's why I make that decision, what's best for Jimmy at the time, and what also was best for our team at the time."
