Good for Jimmy Garoppolo, who is someone we can all probably relate to (at least a little bit)
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Jimmy Garopplo and I are not alike. At all.
He’s a professional football player who plays one of the hardest positions in all of sports. I like to hit the elliptical a few times a week and sometimes quit five minutes before the time is up.
He makes a boatload of money. I have some credit card debt.
He’s unworldly handsome. I have a long torso and need to lose 20 pounds (hence the elliptical).
But yet he and I – and probably you! – do have one thing in common and it was easy to feel that while watching Monday night’s Rams-49ers game – we’ve both been told (often times!) that we stink at our jobs and that somebody else would be much better at doing our jobs.
Which makes what he did last night against the Rams pretty fun to watch.
Garoppolo, of course, was supposed to get ditched by the 49ers last offseason after leading them to the NFC title game. San Francisco had second year QB Trey Lance and it seemed to make sense to hand the keys over to what they hoped would and will be the franchise QB that can lead them to many big seasons for the next bunch of years.
Nobody else in the league really wanted Jimmy G so he just kind of hung around and worked out basically on his own before agreeing to a restructured deal with the 49ers that was a big pay cut with lots of incentives that neither side probably thought he would come close to hitting.
Then early in Week 2 Lance went down with a horrific injury and the Niners had to turn back to the guy they tried like heck to get out of town. Jimmy G has since gone 2-1 as a starter and last night improved to 7-0 against the Rams in the regular season with a 24-9 win.
Jimmy G threw one TD pass (Deebo Samuel did most of the work on that awesome play) and didn’t throw an interception. His performance was pretty much who is – he’s not going to dazzle you, he’s going to miss some/a bunch of throws, and he’s going to make you pull out your hair a little bit.
But he got the win! And that must have felt pretty darn great for the dude who said all the right things after the game about just taking advantage of your opportunities and not letting decisions by the teams or comments by the fans get him down.
It was all cool to see and I think we can all find a little something to relate to in his performance and his ability to put things in the past in the past and just go out and do his job the best that he can.
Sure, he’s still a very wealthy man and his looks will likely never leave him and he has a very good life. But it still felt good to watch someone rise up and quiet the haters on the national.
At least for one night!
Now I gotta go hit that elliptical. And pay off (down) some credit card debts.
Quick hits: Tom Brady’s handshake message to Patrick Mahomes… New NFL Power Rankings… Fantasy football advice… And more.
Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports
– Tom Brady had an obvious message for Patrick Mahomes after their game Sunday night.
– Here are our latest NFL power rankings after a wild Week 4.
– Charles Curtis has a bunch of players you should be looking at on your fantasy football waiver wires.
– Josh Allen hilariously mocked Bryson DeChambeau’s rope fail after the Bills’ win in Baltimore.