What stood out most about quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo’s performance in beating the Bears Sunday was his accuracy. It led to consistent first downs, and kept drives alive. Behind Garoppolo, the 49ers converted 10 third downs, and all six of rookie Trent Taylor’s six receptions resulted in first downs.
That’s what happens when a quarterback completes over 70 percent of his throws AND Garoppolo was even more accurate than that except for circumstances beyond his control. Just consider his seven first-half incompletions:
1. Fluttered a throw over Louis Murphy’s head on his first pass of the game, which was probably a result of nerves.
2. On target to tight end Garrett Celek, but the pass was defended by cornerback Kyle Fuller
3. Dropped screen pass by Carlos Hyde
4.. Accurate throw to Murphy, intercepted by Fuller when he steals the ball from Murphy’s grasp.
5. Garoppolo flushed and threw late to Murphy and hit him in stride, but lateness of the throw led Murphy out of bounds.
6. Low percentage throw to Celek deep and over his head.
7. Another pass when Garoppolo was driven from the pocket and then he threw late to George Kittle, who caught the ball out of bounds.
To summarize, in the first half, Garoppolo threw two inaccurate passes in 22 first-half attempts. You could question his decision to throw to a covered Celek for one of his incompletions, however, Garoppolo could have gained much more than his 292 passing yards on the day, and could have increased his 82.4 passer rating, which could have been closer to 100 if not for the Murphy interception. And that play was clearly not on Garoppolo.
In the second half, Garoppolo threw inaccurately twice, once throwing behind Hyde on a short route and another on a high throw to Murphy. In all, only four errant passes in 37 attempts.