Today is Tuesday. It is the San Francisco 49ers players' day off, which sounds nice until you hear quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo break down the team's regular-season work week leading to a Sunday game.
Garoppolo was the guest on the latest "49ers Insider Podcast," and he shared with Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports Bay Area what a week during the regular season is like from the quarterback's perspective.
Right now, the players are preparing for their road opener on Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium. Garoppolo, along with his teammates and coaches, is already entrenched in day two of the preparation process. He also shares why a "players' day off" is anything but a "day off."
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The following assumes the upcoming game falls on a Sunday. All but three of the 49ers' scheduled regular-season games this year fall on a Sunday. They have two Monday games and a Thursday game scheduled.
Monday
"It's usually a recovery day," Garoppolo said. "You come in, watch the film from the night before or the day before, whatever it is. You start watching film for the next week, who you're playing, get their depth chart and everything. You lift, a run, and then just taking care of your body."
Tuesday
"Tuesday's one of the craziest days, honestly," Garoppolo said. "It's a lot of film work, a lot more mental stuff than physical stuff. The physical ones come later in the week. Tuesday is all mental. Get your arm right, whatever bumps and bruises you've got to deal with, massages and all that stuff. It's a long day, Tuesday."
Wednesday
"Wednesday is another long one," Garoppolo said. "That's your first practice of the week. Installing a bunch of stuff, looking at their defense. That's when the coaches start to give you the game plan that they have from the last two days, and you get rolling."
Thursday and Friday
"Wednesday, Thursday, (and) Friday are all pretty similar," Garoppolo continued. "Just, you're working on different stuff. Early downs, red zone, third down, end of game, all that stuff. And then throughout all that, you're just watching film continuously at night, studying the game plan, whatever the audibles, checks are, all that stuff."
Saturday and Sunday
"I've been in some games where you put something in literally a couple of hours before because the coach said, 'Oh, this is going to work,'" Garoppolo said. "You kind of trust it. It's something that you probably have done in the past in a prior game, or you talked about. Sometimes you draw stuff up on the sideline that will work, and you've never practiced it. It's kind of just having faith."
You can listen to the entire conversation with Garoppolo below.
