When Kyle Shanahan was on Chris Simms’ podcast, he was asked when he felt like San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo started to take his game to the next level. Simms asked, was it due to the acquisition of Emmanuel Sanders, which Shanahan responded:
That was the timing of it. Our defense carried us at the beginning of the year. Then our run game carried our offense at the beginning of the year, to where we didn’t have to do much and put a lot on Jimmy. We didn’t have to call a lot of passes.