This site uses cookies. If you continue to browse the site, we shall assume that you accept the use of cookies.
Big Brother and online Hunger games.

No title

Sep 23, 2018 by Memphis_Grizzlies
The 49ers’ season is over.

Yes, there are still 13 games to play on the 2018 schedule, but this San Francisco team will not be going to the playoffs — in fact, they’ll be lucky to better their 6-10 record from last season.

The 49ers’ aspirations for the 2018 season went out the door Sunday when quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo — trying to make a play with his team down two touchdowns in the fourth quarter — decided to not run out of bounds, planted his left leg on the Kansas City Chiefs’ 11-yard line, and had his left knee buckle.

He was driven off the field and later out of the stadium.

And while Niners coach Kyle Shanahan said that the team is “fearing” an ACL tear, that rhetoric was only used because the quarterback was yet to undergo an MRI. And when that imaging comes in, no one in red and gold is expecting good news.

According to a 49ers player who was in the training room with Garoppolo after the game, the ACL in the quarterback’s left knee is torn and the MCL might have torn too.

NFL doctors don’t need an MRI machine to diagnose those injuries — they’ve seen enough of them to know — but nothing is certain yet. Either injury ends Garoppolo’s 2018 season and puts into question his availability to start of next season’s training camp.

Garoppolo didn’t talk to the media Sunday. He remained in the training room while his teammates dressed following a 38-27 loss — his leg wrapped and elevated — and a 49ers staffer packed up his locker for him. The quarterback was driven to a meeting with his family — his parents and three brothers were at the game — in a tunnel outside the 49ers’ locker room, and then, after that, out of the stadium. He had a new set of crutches and a left leg that couldn’t bend.

Unsurprisingly, the man with the million-dollar smile was somber.

Perhaps no team’s fate was tied more to their quarterback’s play than the 49ers’. Garoppolo and the Niners were downright symbiotic — he was the team’s hope.

So if there’s no Garoppolo for the remainder of 2018, the 49ers have no hope.

Niners fans can wish it was more complicated than that, but it really isn’t.

(AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Last season, Garoppolo invigorated a moribund franchise with transcendent play at the most important position in the game. With him at quarterback, the Niners stood a chance to make the playoffs this season, despite the fact that San Francisco’s roster is noticeably short on talent. That’s why San Francisco made him — at least for a moment — the highest-paid player in the NFL this past offseason.

But now, with Garoppolo hours away from being officially ruled out for the 2018 season, the 49ers — with C.J. Beathard likely to be the team’s starting quarterback for the rest of the year — look extremely similar to the team that started the 2017 season 0-9.

Together, Garoppolo and Shanahan — one of the game’s elite offensive play callers — could cover up some of the Niners’ talent deficiencies. Sunday’s game was a great example — the Niners’ bottom-tier defense allowed the Chiefs to score a touchdown on all five of their first-half drives, but Garoppolo and the Niners offense were poised to make the contest a one-score game with possibly enough time for another offensive possession.

Garoppolo gave the 49ers a chance. But without him, this San Francisco team doesn’t stand one.

Now, Niners players and coaches will have positive things to say about Beathard, but he’s not doing what Garoppolo is able to do for this team — we saw what kind of quarterback the Iowa product was last season (hint: reviews weren’t positive and he wasn’t given a $137 million contract) — and there’s no reason to think that the defense is going to suddenly become an elite unit capable of singlehandedly winning games. (I laughed a bit writing that sentence — sorry, I watched Sunday’s game.)

And while the Niners could go out and sign another quarterback — a veteran who, in theory, gives this team a chance to win in 2018 — such players aren’t often readily available, and given the state of this roster, San Francisco would likely be better off just playing Beathard in an effort to earn an early pick in the 2019 NFL Draft.

It’s not much of a silver lining, but that’s the only positive I could find from Sunday’s misfortune: this rebuilding team could use a bad 2018 campaign to land the additional impact player it needs.

Oh, you forgot this team was still rebuilding? Well, you’re about to be reminded of that fact on a weekly basis.

(AP Photo/Charlie Riedel) (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Given that the 49ers’ season is effectively over, Garoppolo’s decision to try to stay in bounds on the fateful quarterback run will likely be debated for the rest of the season (if not longer).

That argument, though, is a waste of time.

Garoppolo’s injury was non-contact — he tried to cut and his knee gave out on him. To argue that Garoppolo was at fault for the injury because he was too aggressive is to imply that he should never try to make an athletic move in a game — a ridiculous notion to carry.

Football is a game played at a literal breakneck speed and sometimes (ok, a lot of the time) bad things happen. That’s the circumstance that befell the 49ers in the preseason — when running back Jerick McKinnon, the team’s prized free agent signing, injured his knee sans-contact in practice — and Sunday.

How ironic is it that Garoppolo went down for the season on a play that could have jumpstarted the Niners’ campaign?

It’s such a cruel fate, and I can’t help but think of the old adage that it’s better to be lucky than good.

The game was on the line, it was third down, and the 49ers’ quarterback was trying to make a play to help his team win.

Would you’d prefer a quarterback who doesn’t try?

Of course not — you’d just prefer one with a bit more luck.

I don’t know if the 49ers were going to be good with Garoppolo at quarterback — he and the Niners had done little to inspire confidence in the first three weeks of the season — but I do know that neither party was lucky this season.

And without No. 10 at the helm, the notion that San Francisco plays in the postseason is laughable. So we’ll see if luck swings their way the next time they’re relevant — in 2019

Leave a comment