Chris Simms believes that Jimmy Garoppolo played some of the best football of his career last season, but his inconsistency lands him at No. 22 on Simms' QB rankings.

Video Transcript

- We're getting to the middle of your rankings here. We're almost dead in the center. So I think it's time.

CHRIS SIMMS: You know what time it is, then, right?

- It's time. Let's do it.

CHRIS SIMMS: Baby, here we go. It's Jimmy Garoppolo time.

- Not quite dead in the middle. He's 22 this year, which is kind of an upset.

CHRIS SIMMS: Yeah.

- So the previous four summers, he has been 20, 21, and then 20, and then 21. So Pete notes here, if he does well in Vegas, he'll be 20 next year. If he does poorly, 21. So I mean, this is where you start and you work from here every single year.

Start with Jimmy. And then go, is he better than Jimmy? Is he worse than Jimmy?

CHRIS SIMMS: Seriously.

- Then group it.

CHRIS SIMMS: It is amazing. You guys laugh. I laugh about it too. It's kind of one of those unintended consequences here of this where it's like, once we get around 19 to 22, Jimmy G is coming up. Does he have superstar potential? No.

Do I think if he plays his best football and is hitting on all cylinders, do I think he can be a guy that's in the top 12, 13? Yeah, I do. Definitely. But he hasn't done that in quite some time here.

But here's where I'll start my headline with Jimmy Garoppolo. He played some of his best football last year, right? I mean, after just getting the rust off from no training camp and the Broncos "Sunday Night Football" game, he made and played some of the best I've seen him play.

Now, within that, and why he's part of 22, he's still good for one-- he could play a game where you'd go great throw, great throw, great decision, great throw, great throw. And then you go, damn, full "Tropic Thunder," just like that out of nowhere? Just full "Tropic Thunder."

We've made all these great throws, and been precise, and everything. And then all of a sudden, we just went back to, like, Josh Allen in Wyoming-- and just said, I can get it in there. Or I'm going to fall backwards and throw the ball up. That's the one thing, hopefully, Josh McDaniels can work out of him.

- I'm interested to see how he functions in that offense, because I relate Josh McDaniels and Kyle Shanahan as, like, they're pretty fairly similar-- like, offensive geniuses. They don't do things the same way, but it's like--

CHRIS SIMMS: Right.

- So, like, for me, like, Kyle Shanahan was over Jimmy, obviously. They got Trey Lance. And they wanted to move on. And now they got Sam Darnold there. He's talking more positively about Sam Darnold maybe than he's talked about Jimmy G in his whole career. But then, obviously, Josh McDaniels saw something that he likes in Jimmy Garoppolo.

CHRIS SIMMS: Yeah.

- I mean, is this a situation where-- are we going to see something different from Jimmy Garoppolo? Or is he going to be functioning pretty close to how we've seen him so far?

CHRIS SIMMS: It's like-- you said it all right right there-- you're right-- it's two of the best minds in the game. But there is a different approach on how they play the game, like, Shanahan and McDaniels. If I had to break this down, because I think it's a good question-- it's a good conversation-- Kyle is a little bit like, I'm going to set it all up, and if you just listen to me, and read this one guy, and make the throw, it's going to be awesome, right?

Where-- so it's all on that. And sometimes, as we were talking about, Jimmy G is like, I know what Kyle said, but I'm going to do this. And then it's like, interception. And you're like, what? Why did you do that? You [BLEEP] idiot, right? Or you go, oh man, I did all that stuff, and he's wide open, and you were a little off target, right? Or something like that.

- Yeah.

CHRIS SIMMS: You know, so there's that. McDaniels is more going to be through the dropback pass game. And it's going to be a little bit like just more-- there's a little more leeway. It's not going to be like, oh, just read this one guy. And here's one guy sat on a platter for you. And if you hit it, we win. If you don't, we lose.

Like, I don't want-- I'm trying to make it-- both offenses have lots of answers. But, like, McDaniels is going to be more along through what we saw with Brady and the Patriots. It's going to be, OK, well, he might have been open on this play, but all right, I got you three or four other options.

Just keep going through your read. You're not going to be perfect every play, Jimmy, right? So if that makes sense-- I hope I'm making-- it's a little more system. I do think McDaniels' dropback pass offense is better than Shanahan's dropback pass offense. I think it has more answers and schemes that they do, right?

Let alone, I think they know how to use the field a little bit more. And he'll be asked to throw the ball outside the numbers a little bit more as compared to that. And I think all that. So I think that fits him more than the pressure of, oh, I got to do everything Kyle said and make the big throw in that spot. I don't know if that was necessarily for him all the time.

- That's interesting, because I think a big benefit for Jimmy G is having that running game that Kyle is a genius at.

CHRIS SIMMS: Sure.

- But the Raiders should have a pretty good running game too with Josh Jacobs coming back there.

CHRIS SIMMS: Exactly right.

- Got his weapons. So for me, I was surprised that this is where the Raiders landed with Jimmy Garoppolo. Because when they moved on from Derek Carr, I thought, OK, they got to have something big planned here. Either they know Tom Brady's coming over, they're going to draft one of these young quarterbacks and build for the future here.

And so I think when I saw that it's Jimmy G, it was like, oh, that was really the plan? Because we haven't heard of Derek Carr's name yet on this list. And so you, obviously, think he's a little bit better than Jimmy Garoppolo.

But you think, from what you saw in Jimmy last year and the things that make you say, he played some of his best football, that we can see maybe even a step up from Jimmy this year.

CHRIS SIMMS: I do. I do think we can. I think new offense, new energy, not the pressure of like, oh, Kyle's looking for somebody else other than me all the time-- all of that is going to be beneficial to him. I do.

And I do-- like I said, I think the offense fits him more. I think he's more of, let me go through the reads-- and, oh, there's Davante on an in cut rather than, oh, play action pass, and, oh, I read the guy right, and I got to throw a perfect throw to this one guy, you know, that Shanahan drew up perfectly on the chalkboard. I just feel like there's a little bit more leeway within the system for him to be comfortable there.

And I just want to like get into a few things about him that really impressed me, all right? He can get the ball out of his hand really quick. He really can. You heard me before the podcast, the one thing I love about Jimmy Garoppolo is he is absolutely fearless in the pocket.

Back to his New England days with Brady, he knows where to step up and find the soft spot in the pocket. He's a way below average runner for the NFL this day and age, right? I mean, I think you and me can beat him in a race, right? He can't do anything like that way.

But, man, like a Marino, he knows where to slide. And the thing I love about him too is he does not need space to throw the ball. People around him, tight quarters, he don't give a shit. He doesn't blink. He shortens his stride. And he just goes, OK, here's Deebo.

I can't really step into it, but I'll just kind of alligator arm there and use my shoulders in my arm and get it done. He is phenomenal like that-- incredible accuracy over the middle or intermediate throws over the middle. Outside the numbers, down the field, it's average in that department. He's got to get better there.

And I think that's where McDaniel will push him too. Because McDaniel is going to be like, no, no, my offense has throws outside the number. Like [BLEEP] you, we got to work at it. Kyle likes living there, so it fit, right?

But McDaniels is going to be like, no, this is a part of my offense. So you got to do it. And I think that's going to be good for him there, right? And I felt like this year watching it back too, that there was less "Tropic Thunder," right-- less "Tropic-- where, like, I would say most years, I could go to every game, I go, there's two or three "Tropic Thunder" plays every game, right-- maybe more.

- Yeah.

CHRIS SIMMS: And he'd get unlucky or lucky depending on the game. This year you go through it and go, it was really only, like, one "Tropic Thunder" moment a game. I think he found a better balance of--

- It lost them the game, but, still, it was--

CHRIS SIMMS: It might've lost the game, but it was only one. Yeah, but, like, you know, what was the game I watched on Friday-- the Chiefs game. I watched the Chiefs game on Friday morning-- or Friday afternoon. And he plays great.

I mean, he plays great. I mean, you're going, damn, they're kind of in control the game. And they're going back and forth with Mahomes. And this is looking great. They get down there on the 4 yard line before the half, and he gets a little pressure, and he throws the ball off his back foot, and throws a pick at the 2 yard line.

They get no points. Kansas City gets the ball to start the half. They go down and score. And all of a sudden it's like, oh, damn, we were in this game and now we're down two touchdowns. What the hell happened, right? So that's where he's got to get it.

But he's one of the best back foot throwers in the NFL. That's why he's great at pressure too. People up in his face, he can kind of just sit on his back foot and flick it like I talk about.

- I mean, it makes sense how some of this "Tropic Thunder," then, does happen, because he's good, actually, at some of that stuff.

CHRIS SIMMS: He is.

- And it works out.

CHRIS SIMMS: It does. Exactly right. It's like we talk about with a lot of these guys-- there's a gift and a curse element to some of their gifts a lot of times, right?

- Yeah.

CHRIS SIMMS: But I think that's really the biggest thing. I wish he would step into throws more. That's what would make him better with these power throws. But he's got great confidence in his control.

He's fearless to throw the ball to tight windows. And he can go through reads quick too. And that's where I think this, again, where, like, Kyle's offense might have been play action go here to here. McDaniels will be shotgun, look to your left. Hey, number 2's over the middle, number 3 is also coming over the middle, and then number 4 is on the right side of that and go through-- I think that's more for him.

- Yeah. What he does is he can function at a high level in a very good offense. And we've seen that the last seven years. We have the seven year ranks, he's like third in completion percentage among all quarterbacks, first in yards per pass attempt-- some of that was yards after the catch.

But he's functioning in that offense, second yards per completion, passer rating he was ninth. Big thing for him is some of that fearlessness is he's lost some time because he's too fearless and he's hurt himself.

CHRIS SIMMS: But that's why New England likes him-- or the Raiders.

- The New England people.

CHRIS SIMMS: The New England people. But that's why they like him, because what you're saying right there, right? Again, Belichick, Brady, Parcells, Simms, Bledsoe, whatever-- they want a [BLEEP] tough guy to stand in the pocket and not worry about anybody hitting them. And then they want, like we just talked about and you said too, wait, he's open by 3 inches?

Throw it in there. He's open by 3 inches. And he's fearless that way. And that's two spots where I'd go I know they hold in high regard. And I think he does have an advantage over Derek Carr. And that's why I think they probably were like, OK, we're good with Jimmy G.

- I'm excited to see it. I want to see how that works out, because they have some cool weapons over there.

CHRIS SIMMS: Yeah, I'm rooting for him.

- They drafted some guys too, right? They got-- yeah, that tight end from Notre Dame.

CHRIS SIMMS: Michael Mayer. They're going to have an offense, for sure. You said it-- run game's good. Davante Adams, Hunter Renfrow, Jakobi Meyers in free agency, Michael Mayer at tight end. They got the best pass rusher in the draft in Tyree Wilson at pick 7.

- Yeah.

CHRIS SIMMS: D should be better, right?

- And if it doesn't work out, Tom Brady just comes down from the owner's suite and he's like, I'll do it. It's fine.

CHRIS SIMMS: Exactly right.

- You got a backup plan. All right, so he is 22. Next year, he'll be 22, or 21, or 20.