Jimmy Garoppolo has dominant history against McVay, Stafford, and Rams

Sean McVay finally said: If you can’t beat him, sign him as a backup

Rams head coach Sean McVay can say that he has an incredible track record at quarterback with former number one overall picks, of which there are three on his resume, and who knows when or if he’ll ever have to find out how he would do with any other type. Even if McVay outlasts Matthew Stafford, which seems probable, can we really rule out that someone like Trevor Lawrence might force his way out of Jacksonville in the modern era of player movement?

If ever there was a team that would say “How many first round picks do you need for your quarterback?”, it is the Los Angeles Rams.

Now McVay is onto approximately his 10th or so true backup quarterback since joining the Rams in 2017 and this time it’s a player who has a lot of experience with celebrating victories over L.A. in his career. Jimmy Garoppolo is 8-0 as a starter against the Rams in the regular season (but 0-1 in playoff games to decide the NFC champion) and when he missed both contests against L.A. in 2018, it was the only time that McVay swept the 49ers.

And other than that very important 2021 NFC Championship game, Garoppolo has also had a dominant stretch against current boss (I know, starters aren’t technically the “boss” of the backups but it’s a funny image to think about) Matthew Stafford, going 1-0 as a starter against the Lions and 4-0 as a starter against the Rams after the Jared Goff trade. He also did a really good job of holding Tom Brady’s clipboard as a rookie in 2014, making it six times that Garoppolo has been an opponent of Stafford’s and six times a victor…

Except for, you know, the NFC Championship.

Sean McVay’s backup QB history

To look around the NFL today is to see two other teams with starting quarterbacks who played for McVay prior to their current setups and pretty soon Goff will join Baker Mayfield in getting a massive contract extension.

With numbers like “I coached almost 10% of the NFL’s current starting quarterbacks, the hardest job in professional sports”, it’s easy to credit McVay as one of, if not the best coach in football.

However, and this is not a knock on McVay but a fact, all three of those quarterbacks were the first overall picks in the draft. It probably just implies that no matter who the coach is, it is up to the players to have the talent, the work ethic, and sometimes just the good luck to succeed in the NFL. There’s only so much that McVay can do and we’ve seen that with basically every quarterback who has left the Rams with the exceptions of Goff and Mayfield.

Even some of the quarterbacks who were thought to be talented enough to have a long career, such as Blake Bortles, couldn’t be helped to help themselves.

In 2017, McVay inherited Jared Goff and turned him from an 0-7 rookie with an 18.3 QBR under Jeff Fisher to a Pro Bowl quarterback and playoff starter with a 56.3 QBR in year two. Goff was even better in the 2018 season, prompting the Rams to give him a four-year extension after the Super Bowl loss to the (Jimmy Garoppolo backed-up) Patriots, but the new money and the loss of the real Todd Gurley signaled the beginning of the end in 2019.

Five years later, Goff is coming off of arguably the best season of his career and his agent knows he can now compel the Detroit Lions to pay him at least $50 million per year on a new deal.

“Goff? $50 million?! No way!”

Kyler Murray makes $46 million per year and Jalen Hurts makes $51 million per year and Goff’s agent can confidently pitch, “Do you want my client for the next five seasons or do you just want to be the next team to sign Kirk Cousins after the Falcons release him?”, who by the way makes $45 million per year despite tearing his Achilles at 35.

Having just signed Amon-Ra St. Brown and Penei Sewell to top-of-the-market deals, the Lions have no leverage and negotiations probably start with a minimum of a four-year, $200 million deal. Between Stafford, Goff, and Mayfield, who re-upped with the Bucs on a three-year, $100 million contract, quarterbacks to have worked with McVay now have the power to waste tens of millions of dollars on cryptocurrency.

And to think that three years ago, nobody was talking about Jared Goff being traded to the Lions. They were talking about Stafford being traded to the Rams.

In his first season as head coach, McVay’s backups were Sean Mannion and Brandon Allen. Mannion spent some time as Cousins backup in Minnesota after the Rams parted ways in 2019, but struggled to stay off of practice squads and is now a coach in Green Bay for former L.A. offensive coordinator Matt LaFleur.

Allen is the third string quarterback on the 49ers and there actually isn’t much standing in between him and Brock Purdy. Allen could beat Josh Dobbs for the backup quarterback job and be one elbow injury away from starting for the 49ers and I guess kind of being the new Jimmy Garoppolo.

In 2019, the Rams made their first go at trying to land a backup with draft pedigree by signing Blake Bortles to a one-year deal. It’s amazing how nonchalant we are about the fact that in 2017, Bortles started the AFC Championship game for the Jaguars (losing to Garoppolo backed-up Patriots), and in 2019 he was Jared Goff’s backup.

But Bortles wasn’t good enough at that job to be in command for any roles in the NFL and he only bounced around a little bit more until he retired following the 2021 season.

This really started McVay down the path of treating the backup quarterback position in the same way that he feels about the kicker position, deciding that undrafted free agent John Wolford was L.A.’s best option in 2020. After spending 2019 on the Rams practice squad, Wolford was elevated to backup and then nearly replaced Goff entirely by the end of the 2020 season.

Wolford spent three seasons as McVay’s main backup but the coach finally admitted what most fans already knew, which is that he’s not good enough to start games in the NFL. Wolford and Bryce Perkins were so bad, in fact, that the team had to pick up Baker Mayfield on waivers in 2022 and start him for five games. Now, Wolford is competing with Kyle Trask to be Mayfield’s backup in Tampa Bay.

Perkins, a 2020 undrafted free agent, recently signed a contract with the Michigan Panthers in the UFL.

Having parted with Wolford and Perkins, as well as losing Mayfield to a starting competition with the Bucs, L.A. once again went the cheap route with the backup position in 2023. The Rams used a fourth round pick on Stetson Bennett, then when that proved to fail, elevated Brett Rypien from the practice squad. After having one of the worst starts in the modern era of the Rams, Rypien was released and L.A. went back to the draft pedigree well by signing Carson Wentz.

There was an assumption, a fair one to make, that Wentz was good enough to be Stafford’s backup again in 2024. Apparently not, as the Rams made no known effort to re-sign Wentz and instead chose Garoppolo after he was released by the Raiders following one bad six-game season in Las Vegas.

Still only 32, could Garoppolo get the same career bump as Goff and Mayfield, or is he doomed to repeat the Blake Bortles path? At least he’s not playing against the Rams anymore.

Jimmy Garoppolo’s history vs. Matthew Stafford, Sean McVay

Forgive me for stretching the truth with Garoppolo’s 6-0 record, but maybe witnessing a win over Matthew Stafford as a rookie in 2014 helped set him on a path of confidence against Stafford teams? I’m grasping for straws and you can’t stop me.

November 23, 2014: Patriots 34, Lions 9 (full game here)

When they were with the Patriots and Lions respectively, Stafford went 1-1 against Tom Brady in his career. Though Detroit was actually a good team in 2014, they got destroyed in New England in 2014. Garoppolo didn’t see any snaps.

September 16, 2018: 49ers 30, Lions 27 (highlights)

The 49ers held a 30-13 lead midway through the fourth quarter, then Stafford threw two touchdowns to cut the lead to three points with 3:27 remaining. Stafford’s stats were dominant, but Garoppolo was efficient and in the final minute Stafford could not convert a 2nd-and-2 on three straight incompletions to end the game.

November 15, 2021: 49ers 31, Rams 10 (highlights)

Stafford threw an interception on each of the first two drives and the Rams struggled to run the ball well in a game that was lopsided in score and time of possession (40 minutes to 20 minutes).

January 9, 2022: 49ers 27, Rams 24 (OT) (highlights)

L.A. took a 17-0 lead in the second quarter and were up 17-3 at halftime. Despite taking a 24-17 lead on a touchdown to Cooper Kupp with 2:29 left in regulation, that proved to be too much time and Garoppolo went 4-of-5 for 83 yards and a game-tying touchdown. Though the Rams held the 49ers to a field goal in overtime, Stafford was picked off on first-and-10 and that ended the game in San Francisco’s favor.

October 3, 2022: 49ers 24, Rams 9 (highlights)

It didn’t seem like the Rams had their worst game ever, they even won time of possession 35 minutes to 25 minutes, but pretty much every drive ended in disappointment. Either settling for a field goal or going three-and-out, or turning it over.

A common theme with Garoppolo is that he doesn’t have to have a great day to win, which is good because he rarely has great games. He just doesn’t make a lot of mistakes that would cause his team to lose.

October 30, 2022: 49ers 31, Rams 14 (highlights)

This was about as good as you’ll see from Garoppolo, he went 21-of-25 for 235 yards and two touchdowns. Even Christian McCaffrey threw a touchdown. Again, the Rams couldn’t run the ball efficiently and it wasn’t until the offensive line was addressed in 2023 that McVay started to find room to run again.

Before Stafford

Prior to trading for Matthew Stafford, Garoppolo also experienced a team win over McVay’s Rams in 2017 (34-13 win, 2 TD/2 INT for Jimmy G), swept the Rams in 2019 (20-7 and 34-31), and went 1-0 again in 2020 (24-16, 3 TD/0 INT).

That puts his record against McVay without Stafford at 4-0, but in total makes Garoppolo 8-0 against Sean McVay.

No wonder the team wanted to put him behind Stafford instead of Wentz. Every time Sean McVay sees Garoppolo, he thinks he’s facing the most successful quarterback in the world!

Every time except that one time, obviously.

January 30, 2022, NFC Championship: Rams 20, 49ers 17 (highlights)

Garoppolo went 16-of-30 for 232 yards with 2 TD, 1 INT, while Stafford went 31-45 for 337 yards, 2 TD, 1 INT. But you remember the game, I’m sure, so there’s not much else needed to be said.

Sean McVay’s love for Jimmy Garoppolo

In a piece that’s now over 5 years old, NFL Network highlighted some comments by Sean McVay on Garoppolo: “That guy’s a stud man” and “The way he interacts with guys, I like that guy, man”.

After the 2017 season, McVay spoke on how trading for Garoppolo was a huge move for the 49ers and that they had gotten a very good quarterback. “Natural thrower of the football, he can move around and change the launch point, has a great feel for play action.”

It’s clear that even if outsiders don’t see Garoppolo as a major addition to the Rams roster, Sean McVay does because of how he’s praised the quarterback’s abilities and demeanor for the past seven years. It was probably shocking to L.A. that Garoppolo was not only available, but available as a cheap backup instead of as someone who would expect to compete as a starter. If Stafford does end up retiring in 2025, Garoppolo is someone who McVay could see as a bridge quarterback to somebody else. It’s hard for me to say that Garoppolo would be anything more than a bridge quarterback, if not for lack of a high ceiling, than certainly because of his injury history and now a two-game suspension that brings some skepticism as far as how many more games he can play without chemical help.

But compared to anyone else who has been a backup for Sean McVay in the past, not including the Baker Mayfield “fever dream” in 2022, Garoppolo could represent someone who could not only start in a pinch. He could potentially even start for a whole season.

And that, my friends, is how you explain trading three first round picks for Trevor Lawrence in 2026.