© David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports
Jimmy Garoppolo’s ability to digest plays and adopt concepts in abbreviated time was groomed during his four-year stint as the New England Patriots’ backup quarterback. Each week, he studied the quarterback opposing New England in its upcoming matchup. Garoppolo would do his best to emulate those quarterbacks to give the Patriots’ defense a look of what was to come.
He often had more success than they did.
If one person knows this, it’s Matt Patricia, the first-year Detroit Lions head coach and former Patriots defensive coordinator, who served in that role throughout Garoppolo’s tenure.
“I can remember coming in on a whole lot of Mondays, saying, ‘The guy that gave us the best look last week was Jimmy Garoppolo,’” Patricia said on a conference call Friday. “You could see right away with his ability to run the show team, his ability to recognize defense, and some of the things that we were doing, and being able to create plays, that he had a certain skill set that was pretty tough to defend against.”
On Sunday afternoon, Patricia’s defense will oppose Garoppolo once again when the Lions (0-1) visit the 49ers (0-1) in their 2018 home opener.
The upcoming matchup summons old memories. When Garoppolo is asked about Patricia, the quarterback lights up and refers to him as “Matty P.”
Jimmy G and Matty P no longer live in the shadows of Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, arguably the greatest head coach-quarterback tandem of all-time. Listen to Patricia and Garoppolo talk, however, and you’ll hear those classic Belichickian idiosyncrasies slip out.
When asked about San Francisco’s Week-1 loss, Garoppolo replies as if he were still operating at Patriots headquarters.
“It’s just we’re onto Detroit,” he says.
When asked about Detroit’s 31-point opening defeat, Patricia replies similarly.
“We have talked about Week 1 at length,” he says. “I want to make sure I give enough respect and thought for Kyle Shanahan. That’s really the point of this week.”
Last year, Garoppolo amazed as the 49ers starter to close the 2017 season, winning all five games despite having limited knowledge of Shanahan’s byzantine offense. Garoppolo was freestyling his way to success, just as he did with the New England scout team.
With the luxury of a full offseason, and a $137.5 million contract for comfort, Garoppolo is much more prepared in 2018.
Both he and Patricia enter their first seasons in new full-time roles. Each is seeking to prove that long-term success is achievable outside of New England, despite the widespread failure of Belichick’s former assistants-turned-head coaches and Brady’s backups-turned-starters.
They got off to rough starts in Week 1.
Garoppolo threw three interceptions and had a 45 percent completion rate in San Francisco’s 24-16 loss at Minnesota. There were some encouraging signs among the team, considering San Francisco had multiple chances to come back despite four turnovers and several missed opportunities.
Patricia’s head coaching debut, however, yielded little optimism. The New York Jets, with rookie quarterback Sam Darnold starting his first regular season game, drubbed the Lions, 48-17, in front of their home fans. Rumblings of Patricia losing his players’ trust and New York knowing Detroit’s plays have shed him in a negative light this week.
But Patricia, like you’d expect him to say, is onto Week 2. And Garoppolo won’t be the only familiar face in the upcoming matchup.
Patricia and Shanahan last squared off when the Patriots famously erased a 25-point deficit to beat the Atlanta Falcons, with Shanahan as their offensive coordinator, in Super Bowl LI. Shanahan has re-watched that game, which featured a brilliant first half of coaching followed with multiple questionable play calls in the second half that fueled New England’s historic comeback.
Aside from that Super Bowl, their only other matchup came in Week 14 of the 2014 season. The Patriots edged out the Browns, 27-26, in Shanahan’s lone season as the Cleveland offensive coordinator.
That familiarity has helped Shanahan devise a game plan for Detroit, despite limited tape of Patricia’s imprint on the Lions.
“(Patricia’s defenses) have all the fronts and coverages and tools in a scheme to adjust as the game goes,” Shanahan said Friday. “If you beat them on something, they have a front or coverage they can call that takes it away… There’s going to be a weakness somewhere, but it’s not the same time every play. You have to see that stuff throughout the game and adjust.”
Patricia reciprocated that praise for Shanahan’s offenses.
“(Shanahan) does a phenomenal job of preparing and scheming and game-planning and putting his players in positions to make plays,” Patricia said.
The last time Shanahan and Patricia matched up, the Falcons averaged a league-leading 33.8 points per game in the regular season, and the Patriots allowed a league-fewest 16.4 points per game in 2016. Both coaches were widely considered two of the league’s brightest coordinators, bound to land head coaching gigs somewhere.
That has now come to fruition. And similar to Super Bowl LI, Patricia will have to beat a Shanahan-coached team to achieve another milestone: his first head coaching victory.