If everything goes right, we'll finally find out how much of a difference quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo can make on an entire season. The San Francisco 49ers and their fans got a glimpse of that in 2017 when they watched Garoppolo reel off five straight victories to end the season.
While Garoppolo looked calm and collected during that stretch, that wasn't always the case. He was coming off a crash course studying an offense that usually takes a player multiple offseasons to master. There were bound to be errors.
And there were.
Garoppolo would sometimes call a play, and his teammates would just look at him in confusion because the play he blurted out didn't actually exist. Running back Matt Breida, who joined KNBR on Friday, attributed the confusion to some technical difficulties.
"I think it was more too with the headset," Breida told Greg Papa and John Lund. "We had some headset issues, and he was (still) just making plays."
Somehow, even with the mistakes and limited knowledge of the system, the offense made it work. Garoppolo, after all, didn't know the whole playbook yet. He knew just enough to be effective, and effective he was. Garoppolo made an immediate impact when he stepped into the huddle.
"You've just got that feeling you can score every play, especially when I was a rookie and we came, and we won those five games," Breida said. "It was kind of amazing because Jimmy didn't really understand the offense yet. He got thrown into that spot, and he was just out there calling plays."
Breida doesn't believe 2017 was a fluke. He believes it was a legitimate glimpse of what Garoppolo can become and even noted an example of the quarterback's elite ability from a recent practice.
"Even like yesterday (Thursday), he made an amazing throw to Dante (Pettis), just a no-looker," Breida said. "He just threw it. It's just stuff like that where you know he's going to be a great quarterback. He's one of those special guys. He's earned everything he's got."
You can listen to the entire conversation with Breida below.