What Should the New England Patriots Expect from Jimmy Garoppolo?
No player in the NFL has bigger shoes to fill this upcoming season than Jimmy Garoppolo. Tom Brady is suspended four games for his “more probable than not” role in the deflation of footballs prior to the New England Patriots’ AFC Championship Game win last season, pending a settlement hearing Wednesday in New York.
Therefore, it is Garoppolo—a 2014 second-round draft pick from Eastern Illinois—who is tasked with taking the reins of the defending Super Bowl champions’ offense for the regular season's first quadrant.
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For the Patriots, Brady’s suspension could have a huge impact on their ability to open the campaign with wins against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Buffalo Bills, Jacksonville Jaguars and Dallas Cowboys.
For Garoppolo, a four-game stint as the team’s starter will be a prime opportunity for the second-year quarterback to prove that he can be a viable long-term successor to Brady when the future Hall of Famer’s run with the Patriots is done.
Between his collegiate play, limited action last season and this summer's training camp, Garoppolo has shown tools that give the Patriots reason to be confident about his future.
To suggest that Garoppolo can step in and operate the Patriots offense without the unit missing a beat, however, is wishful thinking. While he has high upside and is actually a more physically gifted quarterback than Brady is currently, there are still numerous ways in which the sophomore signal-caller lacks his elder's positional mastery.
Reasons for Optimism
Garoppolo has the arm talent to make any throw on the field. Whether he can hit those attempts with consistency remains to be seen. But he has a demonstrated ability to deliver the ball deep downfield with accuracy and velocity and complete passes against tight coverages.
While Brady has famously thrived on his ability to complete passes at the intermediate level (10-19 yards), it shouldn’t come as a surprise if the Patriots attempt more long throws with Garoppolo at the helm.
Garoppolo has a stronger arm than the future Hall of Famer. If he can use that to his advantage to stretch the field, he will open things up for the Patriots offense underneath—both for himself and for the New England running game.
Having attended four Patriots training-camp practices so far this summer, I have gotten an up-close look at Garoppolo and Brady side by side. In that setting, one advantage that has clearly stood out for Garoppolo is the younger quarterback’s ability to use his feet.
That’s not to say he is a dual-threat quarterback or that the Patriots should suddenly adjust their offense to incorporate running plays for him. But while Brady is notoriously one of the slowest NFL players as far as running outside the pocket, Garoppolo moves with better dexterity, which enables him to scramble to extend plays and to evade pass-rushers in the pocket in some situations.
The 23-year-old Garoppolo’s footwork is good from a mechanical standpoint as well. He is clean in his dropbacks and has shown a strong ability to step into his throws when he has room to climb the pocket.
Garoppolo’s upper-body mechanics are also sound. The second-year quarterback has had an excellent release dating back to his time at Eastern Illinois. He has an efficient throwing motion, and when he lets go of the ball, it explodes out of his hand.
In limited action last season, Garoppolo performed adequately. While he was unable to lead the Patriots to a Week 17 victory after playing the second half against the Bills—which was his only significant playing time of the season—he completed 19 of his 27 total passing attempts on the year for 182 yards and one touchdown with no interceptions.
Although this upcoming preseason will be a much better indicator of where Garoppolo is at as a quarterback, he performed solidly during the 2014 summer session, completing 46 of 79 passes for 618 yards, five touchdowns and one interception.
| Season | Comp-Att (%) | Yds/Att | TD | INT | QB Rating |
| 2014 Regular Season | 19-27 (70.4) | 6.7 | 1 | 0 | 101.2 |
| 2014 Preseason | 46-79 (58.2) | 7.8 | 5 | 1 | 99.0 |
Whether the Patriots can continue to succeed with Garoppolo will not be based solely on his individual play, though. It's also contingent on the players around the him performing at their best. To do so, those players need to believe in their ability to win with Garoppolo.
So far, his teammates have seemingly shown nothing but confidence in him.
“I feel like Jimmy can hold his own,” Patriots running back LeGarrette Blount told SiriusXM NFL Radio (h/t NFL Media’s Marc Sessler) last week. "I feel like if he goes in there, he's going to be productive and I think he's going to be good. I don't think he's going to go out there and do anything crazy. I think he's going to go out there and do exactly what they tell him to do."
The caveat to that, of course, is that Garoppolo’s teammates would have no incentive to say anything negative about him. All in all, though, there is reason for Patriots players, coaches and fans to feel good about Garoppolo’s potential.
However, there are areas in which Garoppolo must quickly improve for the Patriots to avoid pitfalls in their first four games.
Reasons for Concern
While the aforementioned side-by-side comparison of Brady and Garoppolo reflects well on the less experienced quarterback’s physical ability, it also shows that Garoppolo is not nearly as sharp as his counterpart, at least right now, as it relates to position's mental aspect.
That is to be expected, considering Garoppolo has never started an NFL game and Brady is one of the most mentally acute quarterbacks in league history. Nonetheless, it is going to be imperative for Garoppolo to become a better decision-maker in order to keep the Patriots offense on the field and to get into scoring position.
The most evident problem with Garoppolo’s game—one that is not as clearly discernible in a training-camp setting but will be noticeable in full-speed, full-contact game action—is that he simply holds on to the ball too long in the pocket, leaving himself in position to take sacks.
Opponents sacked Garoppolo five times last season on just 34 dropbacks, and on one of every three occasions he faced pressure in the pocket, according to Pro Football Focus.
By comparison, Brady—who is consistent in making quick decisions—was sacked only 21 times on 613 total dropbacks, and opponents pressured him only 11.4 percent of the time.
Garoppolo not only needs to become faster with his decision-making process, but he also needs to become more advanced. A noticeable flaw that has been obvious for the quarterback in training-camp practices this summer is that he has been forcing too many throws to receivers who are covered, failing to use his eyes to effectively find those getting open elsewhere on the field.
As for his throws, he still needs to become more consistent with his ball placement. While he does show the ability to thread passes within tight windows—in part because he attempts more of them than he should—he does not yet proffer the reliable precision as a passer that Brady has, especially on short and intermediate throws.
By regularly recognizing receivers as they break open and throwing the ball with timing, anticipation and accuracy, Brady has a longstanding reputation of making the pass-catchers around him look better. Garoppolo, less efficient in finding open targets and hitting receivers in stride, is not in a position—at least not yet—to have the same effect on the talent around him.
Garoppolo has the tools to end up becoming an excellent quarterback. With Brady's enviable tutelage, and head coach Bill Belichick and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels helping him, he should continue to become mentally sharper as he gains experience.
The reason for concern now is that the Patriots need Garoppolo to be ready to start a meaningful game in just one month, on Sept. 10, which makes it necessary to accelerate his progress as a decision-maker and efficient pocket passer as much as possible.
To Garoppolo’s credit, he has acknowledged that there are “an endless amount of things” that he must continue to work on, as seen in the following video:
“We’re all out here just trying to get better every day, take it one day at a time,” Garoppolo said. “There are little things every day that you focus on. You got to take it day by day.”
How Many Games Can the Patriots Win with Garoppolo?
Following NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's July 28 ruling to uphold Brady’s suspension after a lengthy appeals process, Brady and the Patriots are still fighting for a resolution that could keep the veteran signal-caller from missing four games.
Brady and the NFL each filed paperwork with a New York federal court last Friday reiterating their cases, and the two sides are scheduled to meet Wednesday in a settlement hearing.
Assuming the NFL continues to stay resolute in its stance, there won’t be any settlement between the two parties. It’s possible Brady’s suspension could be overturned by the court in time for the start of the season, though. At this point in the process, however, the Patriots coaching staff needs to prepare for Garoppolo to start the season under center.
No one with any rationality should expect Garoppolo to be better than Brady or perform at the same level as the longtime starter this season.
But, ultimately, all that really matters to the Patriots, who are looking to win their 13th AFC East championship in a 15-year span, is that they are able to win games early in the season to keep themselves in position for another division title, regardless of their starting quarterback.
If Garoppolo is the starter, the Patriots probably won’t have a 4-0 record when Brady comes back.
Set to go up against two playoff teams from last season in the Pittsburgh Steelers and Dallas Cowboys, plus a squad with an elite defense that beat Garoppolo last year in the Buffalo Bills, the Patriots will need to be at their best to win any of those contests, with the Jacksonville Jaguars looking to be their most beatable of their first four opponents.
However, it would be much more surprising to see the Patriots start the season 0-4 than it would be for them to begin it 4-0. A team that has built a 14-year run of greatness around Brady and not simply on him, the Patriots should remain competitive, as they have talent on offense, defense and special teams that can help put Garoppolo into advantageous positions.
Garoppolo's most crucial step, given the concerns outlined above, will be to avoid turnovers and sacks. Whether he is good enough to carry an NFL offense on his back to a victory—as Brady has done so many times in his storied career—remains to be seen. But the Patriots can still win with Garoppolo, so long as he does not make mistakes that cause the team to lose games.
Defending a Super Bowl championship is never an easy task—no team has done it successfully since the Patriots 11 years ago—and Brady's suspension leaves them with plenty of adversity to overcome at the beginning of the season.
The situation's silver lining is it gives Garoppolo, who has legitimate franchise-quarterback potential if he can put it all together, an opportunity to gain experience and prove his worth in meaningful, high-pressure games. Garoppolo should benefit in the long run, and if he performs well, it leaves the Patriots feeling better than ever about their quarterback situation once Brady returns.
Dan Hope is an NFL/NFL Draft Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report.
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