Brent Jones has mostly been a Jimmy Garoppolo defender over the years, but Sunday night was a tipping point.
The former 49ers Hall of Fame tight end ripped Garoppolo’s performance and his conduct after the game, saying that he primarily laid the blame on Garoppolo for the loss. Garoppolo’s stats weren’t that bad — he was 18-for-29 for 211 yards with a touchdown and a pick — but San Francisco scored just 10 points, and Jimmy G nearly had a pick-six had he not stepped out of the back of the end zone for a safety.
Here’s what Jones had to say on Tolbert & Copes:
I am laying the blame, I don’t do this very often, in fact I don’t do it hardly at all. Jimmy Garoppolo was horrible. What the heck? When you’re a professional football player and quarterback, you know where the back of the end zone is. That was so outrageous. You know how many times I’ve seen that from a veteran quarterback. 0.0 from a veteran quarterback, it’s just the worst.
While I was yelling ‘ what are you thinking?’ He’s throwing a pick-six so I’m rooting for safety. You know since we got Jimmy, I’ve been pretty supportive of Jimmy, and I’ve tried to say so along the way. And he’s not perfect, he does one or two goofy things every game and we talked about this, even when Trey was the starter. I said ‘just remember, the world isn’t totally rosy with Jimmy in there.’
That fumble he was pulling away from the center too early, the pick into double maybe triple coverage was just nasty, but I gotta say, and I don’t think I’ve ever said this before, after you played horrible and you’re the reason your team lost the game, you do not smile and go glad handing the other team after the game. I’ve never seen that from any quarterback ever, that has ever been any good.
Steve Young? No way. Joe Montana? Hell no. Brett Favre? No chance in heck. You think Russell Wilson is laughing after he throws a pick, steps out of the end zone for a safety and fumbles a ball and plays horrible and his team’s 1-2 and the reason they lost the game. It almost looked like he didn’t even care. It was so frustrating, and maybe I was just mad because the game was so ugly. If that’s me, I’m running for the locker room. I am not smiling, I am not talking to anybody for a week if you play like that.
I just don’t get his disposition, but that was really frustrating. Icing on the cake.
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I want to see Jimmy grabbing a couple receivers and talking to them, I want to see him patting his linemen on the shoulder and saying ‘I need some time’…I want him talking to a coach. I always just see him sitting there posing and nobody is taking GQ pics on the sideline. I want to see some emotion, I want to see some quarterbacking, but they always just show him sitting there looking stoic, posing. I wanna see some messed up hair, how about that?
I want my quarterback all in. I’m not saying he’s not, but it sure comes across like ‘ya, know, oh well, too bad, I had to take a pay cut this year. It’s not on me, I’m just here having fun. High five. Yeah we got smoked.’
Do you know we’ve played three crappy teams? These teams are pretty crappy. They’ll all finish under .500 and we’re 1-2, and we’re out laughing after the game. C’mon. How come I’m more mad than Jimmy?”
Listen to the full interview below. You can listen to every KNBR interview on our podcast page at knbr.com/podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Catch Tolbert & Copes weekdays from 2 p.m. – 6 p.m. on KNBR 104.5 / 680 and streaming live on KNBR.com.