Each offseason, Jimmy Garoppolo has to deal with those questioning whether he is the right quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. In 2020, after a Super Bowl appearance, rumors were circulating about his former mentor in New England, Tom Brady, possibly replacing him. This offseason, it has been everyone from Matthew Stafford to Deshaun Watson.
Do chatter and constant doubt in Garoppolo's ability bother the quarterback? Not as much as one might believe, it seems.
Soon-to-be free agent, 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk, joined The Pat McAfee Show on Monday and shared why the constant rumors don't weigh on Garoppolo. It's because he doesn't listen to never-ending social media dialogue. In fact, he doesn't see much of it.
"I think it would be naive to say that he doesn't hear any of it, but the guy really doesn't hear a lot of it," Juszczyk told Pat McAfee. "He's not super active on social media. I mean, you'll see the guy post like once a month on his Instagram, and it's usually some sort of ad for some high-end car dealership or something. I don't think he has a Twitter account, and if he does, he's not very active on it."
Garoppolo does have a Twitter account. It is @JimmyG_10. However, Juszczyk is correct when it comes to the lack of activity. Retweets dominate his timeline, with the last one coming in December of 2019.
"And I know he keeps things really close in-house," Juszczyk continued. "The guy hangs out with his brothers, mostly, spends a lot of time with his family, just kind of has a tight-knit group of guys, and so he's not really putting himself out there and letting himself listen to that kind of stuff because I think he knows how toxic it can be and what it can lead to. You've seen in other situations where guys just get hammered down reading negative things about themselves."
With so many professional athletes being very active on social media, it can be difficult to imagine a high-profile one, like Garoppolo, ignoring it almost entirely. It certainly works for him. You never see the quarterback engaging in a back-and-forth with critical fans or the media.
Adds Juszczyk: "I think he does a good job of kind of blocking that stuff out."