Jimmy Garoppolo suffered a potentially devastating knee injury Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs that could derail the San Francisco 49ers’ season. But was the non-contact injury a stroke of bad luck — or could it have been easily avoided?
Chiefs linebacker Justin Houston had no problem giving his take.
“That was (Garoppolo’s) fault,” Houston said Sunday after Kansas City’s 38-27 win, via Pro Football Talk. “I pray he’s not hurt, nothing serious, but as a quarterback you should step out of bounds. It was only an inch. That inch wouldn’t have made a difference. You got the yardage you need, you step out of bounds. You got to be smart.”
Some might criticize Houston for his bluntness, but he has a point.
Garoppolo scrambled for a 13-yard gain on the fateful play, but it came on 3rd-and-goal from the 20-yard line, and he was nearly 10 yards away from the end zone when he tried to plant his foot and cut back near the left sideline. Garoppolo easily could have run out of bounds — the Niners went for it on fourth down anyway — but instead received a crushing blow from Kansas City safety Steven Nelson in addition to buckling his knee.
The counter-argument is that Garoppolo is a competitor trying to make a play to help his team win. But in today’s NFL, the cold reality is that quarterbacks — especially those who just signed lucrative contracts — need to prioritize protecting themselves over taking unnecessary hits.
As Garoppolo’s former coach, Bill Belichick, likes to say, “the best ability is availability.”
