The 49ers will likely be without their starting quarterback for at least one week. After a first half which was statistically dominant from San Francisco, but ended in a deadlock, Garoppolo left the game with a calf injury.
Rookie quarterback Trey Lance relieved Garoppolo on short notice, with Kyle Shanahan saying after the game that he found out at the end of halftime that Garoppolo wouldn’t be able to go back in, and said he believed Garoppolo’s calf got stepped on.
Garoppolo said afterwards he wasn’t totally sure what had happened, but that he felt himself tweak his right calf on the first series of the game.
“I thought I could keep trying to go and just kept getting worse and worse,” Garoppolo said. “Traveled down into the Achilles a little bit.”
Any mention of the Achilles is eyebrow-raising. Garoppolo said “felt something go in the calf,” but said he believed it’s not likely to be a torn Achilles.
That said, he expects to miss some time.
“No. I really hope not,” Garoppolo said. “Just feels like the calf right now. I’m hopeful it’ll just be a couple weeks or something like that.”
As the first half progressed, he said he could feel it continually tightening up on him. He blamed the calf injury for some of his throws and expressed exasperation with yet another injury. It’s now the third time in four years that he’ll miss time with a lower body injury.
“I was using all upper body, couldn’t step into the throws,” Garoppolo said. “My calf’s kind of where I get all my power from, so it definitely affected some of that stuff… It’s just tough, man. I don’t know. I’ve been in this situation too many times and it’s getting real old.”