‘He’s got to be better with the ball’: 49ers’ Kyle Shanahan evaluates Jimmy Garoppolo after tough loss to Seahawks

Jimmy Garoppolo's streak of impressive play came to an end on Sunday afternoon against a familiar foe that continues to dominate the San Francisco 49ers—the Seattle Seahawks. Entering the NFC West clash, Garoppolo owned a passer rating of 108.8 since Week 8. He was 20-of-30 for 299 yards and two touchdowns at Lumen Field against the Seahawks. However, the veteran quarterback made two costly mistakes, throwing multiple interceptions in a game for the first time since October 24.

"He did some good things," head coach Kyle Shanahan said after the game when asked to evaluate Garoppolo's play. "Those two picks, though, weren't good plays. He's got to be better with the ball."

Bobby Wagner hauled in the first Garoppolo-thrown interception, which hit the linebacker in the gut as if the defender was the target. Safety Quandre Diggs grabbed hold of the second one.

"In the first one, Wagner got back, which he does a great job of, and Jimmy's got to wait for him to go by him," Shanahan explained. "You try to throw it in the first window. It's a second-window throw. On the next one, both linebackers were back there. Jimmy knew it and tried to drop it in over him, which is an overthrow. He should have checked it down below, underneath him."

Garoppolo also shared his thoughts on his two interceptions.

"Just tough situations," the quarterback said. "The second one, [I] just got a little greedy with it. I should have just been a little smarter and taken the checkdown. Just two tough situations with that. ... [On the first one], he made a nice play on it. There was a big crowd of people with the play-action, and he just kind of popped out of it last second. Tip your hat to him. He made a nice play on it."

This past week, Shanahan predicted that the game would come down to the last series. It did. It doesn't matter what the records are. The Seahawks always manage to play the 49ers hard.

"Seattle could be literally 0-16, going into Week 17, playing us, and I think it's always going to be like this," linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair said after the game. "Every time you play Seattle, every time they play us, we know it's going to be a fight to the very, very last play. I think every game that we've lost in the last two or three years has been like that. And the games that we won have been the same thing. It's always coming down to those last plays."

Garoppolo added, "They've been like this for years now. It starts with [Russell Wilson] and Coach [Pete] Carroll, I think, but that's just kind of the team they are. It's very similar to us, in that way. That's why it's always just such a dogfight between us when we play each other. We knew what we were getting into. Just got to be more ready."