49ers keep unbeaten start going
SANTA CLARA — Jimmy Garoppolo had only been hit two times — combined — during the 49ers’ first two games this season.
That changed Sunday. He was drilled eight times by the Pittsburgh Steelers, who brought pressure from various angles throughout the day to throw San Francisco’s offense off kilter. But Garoppolo didn’t flinch. “He loves it. He likes getting hit, I don’t know why,” cornerback Richard Sherman said. “Not every quarterback likes it. It kind of wakes him up. It didn’t bother him throughout the game.”
Garoppolo finished Sunday with 277 yards while completing 72 percent of his throws. He was charged with two interceptions that bounced off the hands of his pass catchers which they should have caught. Matt Breida batted a screen pass in the air to defensive end T.J. Watt and Dante Pettis had a throw go off his fingertips to free safety Minkah Fitzpatrick.
The 49ers won, 24-20, despite losing the turnover battle, 5-2, and giving it away deep inside Steelers’ territory while down three points with 6:53 remaining in the game.
But San Francisco got the ball back thanks to a forced fumble from Arik Armstead, giving Garoppolo another chance. He found Pettis from five yards out
with just over a minute remaining to get his team to 3-0 for the first time in 21 years.
“Obviously, he stayed poised, especially on the game winning drive, the game winning touchdown,” Sherman said. “Some of those plays, like I said last year, the ball just doesn’t bounce your way. Some of the turnovers, some of the fumbles, it bounces off here, it hits this guy, it snaps right as the guy is going by. You just take that for what it is. “
Garoppolo stood firm in the face of pressure as he did when he first joined San Francisco in 2017, helping his new team go 5-0 to end the season. Getting hit, of course, is not something that be simulated during practice, and getting used to the contract was a clear obstacle coming back from the ACL tear that cost him the final 13 games of last season.
“You never want to (get hit),” Garoppolo said. “But it’s part of the game.”
Said fullback Kyle Juszczyk, who may have saved Garoppolo from an interception while making a long completion in the first half: “I just love how resilient he is. He has no fear. He’ll put the ball in there and trust his wide receivers to make a play, even when things might not look so clean and easy. He’ll step in there, take the hit and he doesn’t shy away the next play. He just continues to do it.”
The play to Pettis was particularly important. Pettis, of course, came into the season expecting to be the team’s No. 1 receiver. Only he struggled to make catches in traffic throughout training camp, leading to playing just two snaps in the season opener.
His playing time increased dramatically last week, though he wasn’t targeted in the passing game. Then he scored the gamewinning touchdown against the Steelers and also had a 12-yard catch that put the 49ers’ at the 4yard line setting up running back Jeff Wilson’s Jr.’s second score of the game, giving him four touchdowns the past two weeks.
“There have been a lot of ups and downs,” said Pettis, the son of former major league baseball player Gary Pettis. “I know that’s part of sports. I’ve been around professional sports my whole life. I know what happens. You’re not just going to be good every single day. Just to be able to fight through that — now I know what it’s like to go through that, it’s like, okay, I can really do this thing. I know I’m here for a reason.”