The 49ers improved to 10-1 Sunday night with a dominant 37-8 win versus the Packers.
San Francisco’s pass defense held Aaron Rogers to a mere 104 yards through the air and is getting due credit for that, but Niners cornerback Richard Sherman says that his quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo is not getting the praise he deserves for his role in the season.
“All he does is encourage his teammates and put more work in,” Sherman said Sunday night. “Then you have people nitpicking. We run for 300 yards and they’re like ‘Well, he didn’t throw a lot.’ We ran for 300 yards! Then, he throws for 400 (yards) and they’re like, ‘Well, I think he got outplayed by Kyler Murray,’ and Kyler Murray barely had 100 yards passing.
You start to laugh at these things, but you’re like the goalposts keep moving with him.”
Garoppolo completed 70 percent (14 of 20) of his pass attempts versus the NFC North Division leaders, averaging 12.7 yards per completion and finishing with 253 passing yards. The 28-year-old’s 145.8 QB rating still won’t be good enough for him to garner the respect Sherman feels he deserves though.
“You’ve got to appreciate being good enough that people got to make excuses for why you’re good,” Sherman said. “He’s a good enough quarterback that people have to make excuses. They have to move the bar, they have to (say), ‘Oh, my God. He didn’t throw for 400 (yards) this day.’ Now his passer rating is 145 on primetime against one of the best teams in football and I’m sure they’ll move the goalpost again.”
Sherman went on to predict that critics and analysts would claim San Francisco’s offense didn’t run the ball well enough versus Green Bay and cite Garoppolo not being a scrambler for the shortcoming.
“It’s like .. I mean, what else can the guy do?” Sherman said.