49ers’ Kyle Shanahan disagrees with Jimmy Garoppolo’s criticism

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Kyle Shanahan doesn’t buy what everyone “sells”.

The 49ers head coach is trying to find a way to turn his team’s season around after four straight losses. Replacing a struggling Jimmy Garoppolo with rookie Trey Lance as a starting quarterback could be one way to energize a team headed in the wrong direction.

But Shanahan disagrees with the idea that Garoppolo has played poorly in the four and a half games he has under center.

“I would totally disagree with that,” Shanahan told KNBR on Friday when asked about the idea that Garoppolo played badly. “I thought he played three well-played games the first two games, especially against Detroit, Philly, our whole offense started off slow. But I thought Jimmy played well overall. And Green Bay, I thought it was his best game. He led us on a great comeback, made some huge plays in that game on the third down which gave us a chance to win it until Aaron knocked us out with those last two games of the game.

“Then he was playing at a high level against Seattle until he got injured and then he came out and his first comeback was in that rain game and had a tough game in that rain game. We’ll see how he bounces back this week, but to say he’s been playing poorly all year, I’d say that’s incorrect.

But the idea that Garoppolo hasn’t played well this season isn’t a creation of the media or the fans. He just wasn’t good and the offense was inconsistent and lacked great playing ability when leading the attack. Part of the blame lies with Shanahan, who admitted following the 49ers’ Week 7 loss to the Indianapolis Colts that he was struggling to find a rhythm as a caller.

But Garoppolo, with the help of Shanahan’s play call, has been one of the more conservative quarterbacks in the NFL and limited himself to no big games on the rise.

Garoppolo ranks 28th out of 32 quarterbacks in ESPN’s total QBR metric at 37.9 and his PFF rating of 56.8 is tied with Trevor Lawrence for fourth worst.

RELATED: Over 49ers’ Season Depends on Lance

Garoppolo made his first big shot of the season against the Colts, illustrating how limited the offense is with him as a man on the trigger. And, what makes matters worse is that Garoppolo has the highest percentage of games worthy of turnover of any QB that has taken at least 56 shots.

He’s conservative but also error-prone, which is a bad combination.

But despite all of that, Shanahan announced Monday that Garoppolo will remain the 49ers’ starting quarterback for their Week 8 clash with the Chicago Bears.

At 2-4, the 49ers must leave Windy City with a win or else their playoff hopes will be all but lost as the schedule turns to November.

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