ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — The first practice after 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo threw five interceptions in a row, he and the offense bounced back with a better day, but there’s still room for improvement.
Garoppolo, who is normally even-tempered, reported that he was pretty upset with his performance after the 'five-pick' practice. He has since had time to look at the positives of learning from those turnovers.
“You guys are seeing me a couple days removed,” Garoppolo said. “That day I was pretty ticked off but the defense got the best of me that day. We’ve battled back and forth. It’s been good for us, it’s been good for them. It’s only going to lead to a better football team.”
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“It was just five bad decisions,” Garoppolo said. “The defense got me, like I said, so there are going to be days like that, but you can’t dwell on those things. We’re past that and on to Denver now.”
Coach Robert Saleh was pleased with the performance of the secondary. He hopes it indicates improvement from their record-setting low amount of takeaways in 2018. He also spoke about the need to keep the focus on takeaways as they have left a few on the field.
“We’re obviously trying to set records the other way,” Saleh said. “And Jimmy, I’m sure he’d want a couple of throws back. It was a good day. And for Jimmy, I know he got a lot of flack for it, but not all of them were his fault, believe it or not.
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"But I’m pumped up anytime we get the ball. We got the ball a couple times here, we dropped a couple. We got to continue to preach on getting the ball whether it’s our offense another team’s offense it doesn’t matter, we just got to keep doing it."
Saleh added that Garoppolo has been predominantly accurate throughout training camp, rarely causing a turnover.
“Jimmy went all camp with only two interceptions,” Saleh said. “I think it’s ok to excuse him for one bad day. He’s going to be special, so no one is skipping a beat in our building.”
At the first day of joint practices with the Broncos, Garoppolo completed 10 of his 15 attempts, with one interception in 11-on-11 team drills. He completed all three of his attempts in 7-on-7 work.
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Garoppolo reported that his teammates did not miss the opportunity to give him a hard time about his errant passes, but he knew it was coming.
“Hell, yeah,” Garoppolo said. "I would do the same if I threw five TDs on them. It goes back and forth and I love that. If they weren’t giving me crap about it, I’d be a little concerned.”