Culture
After some 'chaotic' seasons, Rams QB Jimmy Garoppolo is having fun again
LOS ANGELES — After a wild few seasons, quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo finally looks relaxed.
The 10-year veteran has returned to a backup role, with both Garoppolo and the Los Angeles Rams recognizing it was the perfect time to unite. Garoppolo was looking for some solid footing, while the Rams wanted a reliable insurance policy for starter Matthew Stafford.
It’s been a great pairing so far, especially after Garoppolo dealt with so much uncertainty in recent years.
“It was chaotic at times, but they’re all learning experiences,” Garoppolo told The Athletic. “That’s one thing I’ve taken from this. The NFL is crazy, man. Everyone has got a story. Everyone is going whichever way trying to make it. But at the end of the day, it’s your story, and you’ve got to make the best of it. Good, bad, or indifferent, whatever happened in the past, it happened. … Now I’m here, and I’m just trying to make every day the best day.”
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Garoppolo’s career as a whole has been remarkably eventful. The New England Patriots drafted him in the second round in 2014, with Bill Belichick pointing toward Tom Brady’s age as a primary reason for exploring a potential succession plan. But when Brady’s play didn’t diminish as he got older, the Patriots traded Garoppolo to the San Francisco 49ers in 2017.
Garoppolo tore his ACL in 2018, guided the 49ers to the Super Bowl in 2019 and lost most of his 2020 season due to a high ankle sprain. Garoppolo maintained the starting job in 2021 after the Niners made a massive draft investment in Trey Lance, but the team had prepared to turn to Lance in 2022, causing an unpredictable chain reaction that seemed to lay the groundwork for Garoppolo’s trade or release. Instead, he reworked his contract and subbed in for Lance after his gruesome ankle injury in Week 2 but eventually went down again with his own Lisfranc injury, paving the way for Brock Purdy’s emergence.
Nary a dull moment, Garoppolo endured a grueling recovery from offseason foot surgery before joining the Las Vegas Raiders in 2023, but he was benched midseason on the same day of head coach Josh McDaniels’ firing.
So you can see why a backup job with the Rams and an opportunity to reset was appealing for Garoppolo.
“It’s really nice having a healthy offseason,” Garoppolo said. “I haven’t had one of those in a while. The foot surgery was tough last year. For anyone who’s ever been through that, that wasn’t a fun recovery, but I feel like I’m back to myself. Being in this role, I get to experiment with some things, being with the 2s. I get to be myself. I haven’t had that in a little while, so it feels nice to get back to that.
Garoppolo largely credited Stafford and Rams coach Sean McVay for being the reasons he wanted to play in Los Angeles. McVay, in particular, impressed Garoppolo when the two chatted on the phone. Garoppolo, who drew interest from other teams, also was eager to learn about Stafford’s process.
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Garoppolo, who will serve a two-game suspension to start the season after violating the league’s performance-enhancing drug policy, also understood during the offseason that a guaranteed starting job wasn’t going to be on the table. Sure, he could have gone somewhere to compete with a young quarterback, but that would have led to a similar dynamic that he experienced in San Francisco where the organization would inevitably lean on the long-term investment. Similarly, teams starting over at QB generally have head coaches whose job security isn’t as stable, which he just witnessed in Vegas.
McVay is as close to a sure thing as there is in the league, and his offensive scheme speaks for itself. The vibe in the Rams’ building is also as strong as it gets.
There was a litany of reasons for Garoppolo to take a step back in southern California.
“This place allows you to be yourself, too, which is different than other places I’ve been. You’re getting pressed with a sense of urgency but in a good way. Obviously, everyone wants to win. Everyone wants to perform well. They do it in the right way here. They push you positively. There’s just a lot of good things going on, man. I’m enjoying every bit of it. Even the meetings are a good time. Everything is going good right now.”
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(Photo: Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images)
Welcome to Literary Quotable Quotes, a quiz that tests your recognition of classic lines. This week’s installment highlights observations from future or alternate worlds depicted in popular science fiction. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books if you’re intrigued and inspired to read more.
Welcome to Lit Trivia, the Book Review’s regular quiz about books, authors and literary culture. This week’s challenge tests your memory of books that made huge impacts on society after they were published — some of them even spurring changes to American laws. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do further reading.
Where do you turn when you need advice? A chatbot? A life coach? A wise and trusted friend?
How about a poet? Poets may not be famous for making the best life choices, but because they subject the mess of human existence to the discipline of language, they can be as helpful as any therapist or mentor.
Good poets know the rules and when to break them, which is something they can teach the rest of us.
To wit:
Giving advice is a peculiar literary undertaking. It flourishes in certain popular genres — graduation speeches, newspaper columns, country and western songs and poems like this one — but what, in these contexts, is it really for?
I’m thinking of situations when you don’t urgently need help but nonetheless enjoy reading answers to questions you may not have thought to ask. What interests you isn’t the content of the advice — you could get all the life hacks you want from A.I. — so much as the voice of the person dispensing it.
Wendy Cope is an English poet, born in 1945, who has been a fixture of her country’s literary scene since the 1980s. More recently, her short, buoyant poem “The Orange” has been widely memed online, bringing her to the attention of new readers beyond Britain.
Cope favors rhyme, meter, brisk jokes and tart aperçus. She addresses romance, friendship and the petty absurdities of modern life with disarming good humor. The last line of “The Orange” is “I love you. I’m glad I exist.” Somehow she makes it the opposite of cringe.
This isn’t the kind of poetry you would describe as “confessional.” And yet …
Question 1/7
Stop, if the car is going “clunk”
Or if the sun has made you blind.
Don’t answer e–mails when you’re drunk.
Tap a word above to fill in the highlighted blank.Want to learn this poem by heart? We’ll help.
Fill in the missing words below. You can always refer to the reading by A.O. Scott and full
text above.Let’s start with the first stanza.
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