SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) - Managing expectations isn’t usually one of the top tasks for NFL teams coming off six-win seasons.
Then again, no team has ever gotten to that underwhelming total with a season-ending, five-game winning streak fueled by the midseason acquisition of a quarterback who has shown signs of becoming one of the league’s most promising passers.
That’s exactly the situation the San Francisco 49ers find themselves in as they held their first training camp practice Thursday led by Jimmy Garoppolo and his $137.5 million contract.
“If our guys make a living just reading and listening to talk radio and stuff, that stuff could mess you up,” coach Kyle Shanahan said. “I am aware that people have talked highly about us and that’s what comes with the territory when you win your last five games after starting so bad. I mean, we all know that doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t.”
The 49ers were far from promising at the start of Shanahan’s first season as coach, losing their first nine games for the worst start in franchise history. That vibe began to change after San Francisco dealt a second-round pick to New England for Garoppolo after the eighth loss and things really began to change once Garoppolo was able to get on the field.
He threw a late garbage-time touchdown in a loss to Seattle that dropped the Niners to 1-10 and then took over as starter from rookie C.J. Beathard the following week. San Francisco didn’t lose again last season, posting the best record ever for an NFL team that lost its first nine games.
But there is little carry-over effect in the NFL with nearly half - 19 of 40 - of the teams that finished the season on a five-game winning streak the past 23 seasons missing the playoffs the following year.
“The way we finished last year was all positive and everything but this is a completely new season with new challenges,” left tackle Joe Staley said. “Everybody has been very focused and understands that. It’s exciting to be able to build on something positive from last year and carry it into the offseason. But there’s no one in the locker room who thinks we arrived. We have a ton of work to do. We were a 6-10 football team. We were happy with the way we finished last year but that’s in the past.”
The presence of Garoppolo is the biggest reason for optimism for San Francisco even if he didn’t look particularly sharp in the first practice of the summer.
He completed 67.4 percent of his passes last season, averaging 8.8 yards per attempt with seven TDs, five interceptions and a 96.2 rating.
Among quarterbacks with at least 100 attempts last season, Garoppolo ranked first in yards per attempt, fourth in completion percentage. His 308.4 yards passing per game in his five starts also would have led the league had he played a full season.
San Francisco scored on an NFL-best 56.6 percent of their drives after Garoppolo took over as starter and ranked in the top five in the league in scoring offense (28.8 points per game), yards per play (6.1) and yards per game (409.6).
That all came with Garoppolo barely knowing the offense, learning just pieces each week as he scrambled to get up to speed. This offseason he was able to start from scratch and has a much deeper understanding of the scheme and his teammates that he hopes translates to even more success on the field.
“The situation I was in last year was so difficult because you’re preparing for a defense that you’re learning in a week, but at the same time, you’re learning brand new calls, new verbiage, all that stuff,” he said. “So, it was combining all of that into one that made it so difficult. Being able to start from the ground up and learn the why’s of the offense, how it all ties together, how one play helps dictate the next play, it just makes more sense.”
The Niners made other upgrades this offseason, adding an explosive running back in Jerick McKinnon, beefing up the offensive line and signing cornerback Richard Sherman to upgrade the secondary.
San Francisco also was one of the youngest teams in the league last year and hopes to see natural improvement from all the rookies who got extensive playing time in 2017.
“That’s the expectation,” second-year safety Adrian Colbert said. “We just have to continue to get better. We can’t get stagnant. We can’t decrease in our production. We have to continue to go. That’s our standard.”
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