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HOUSTON -- For the first time under coach Kyle Shanahan and the first time since 2014, the San Francisco 49ers have won two games in a row. After Sunday's 26-16 win against the Houston Texans, Shanahan was asked if he's allowed himself to think about what this season might have brought had Jimmy Garoppolo been at quarterback all along. "I don't really think that way," Shanahan said. "You go through an offseason and stuff, you prepare him a lot more for the year and who knows? But it's not something I would think about very much." While the past -- and that abysmal 0-9 start -- might already be water under the bridge, many 49ers and their fans aren't afraid to look to the future, a future that, with Garoppolo, looks much brighter than it did without him. "It definitely just builds the confidence," fullback Kyle Juszczyk said. "[It] gets everyone excited. I mean, it feels like a whole new season here. It feels like we started last week. Especially, getting a win, we wish we had more games left. We wish we had a full season to do this thing with him." What would a full season have looked like? We'll have to wait to get the answer, and we won't go through the exercise of trying to extrapolate his numbers from these past two starts over the course of a full 16-game season. There's still plenty to chew on, however.  Consider that Garoppolo's 627 passing yards are the most by a 49ers quarterback in his first two starts since the merger in 1970. He's also the third Niners quarterback to win each of his first two road starts and the fourth active quarterback to win his first four starts regardless of location.
In his two starts plus one three-play sequence against Seattle, Garoppolo is 48-of-72 for 645 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions for a passer rating of 92.7. His average of 9 yards per pass attempt would lead the NFL if he had thrown enough passes to qualify. Beyond the box scores, Garoppolo already has ingratiated himself with his teammates. He's made it a point to spend time chatting with teammates from all corners of the locker room and already has earned the trust and respect of the group, a quality that's imperative for any quarterback. "Jimmy is a great guy," receiver Marquise Goodwin said. "He's a leader. He's natural at it. He doesn't show [fear] at any point of the game. When you see that in the position that he's in, it gives you extreme confidence. When you look at him in the third quarter or in the second quarter and we're down by one or up by one, you feel that sense of hope. You feel that sense of 'I'm going to get the job done.' And at no point in the game do I ever feel like we're behind or we're slacking in that position, because he's led us the whole way from start to finish." This is probably where we're supposed to insert the usual caveats about how it's been only two games with Garoppolo as the starter and though he put up big numbers and a pair of wins in those games, they were against a pair of teams in Chicago and Houston that are pretty far removed from playoff contention. That's fair enough, and with three games to play, including matchups against stout defensive teams in the Jacksonville Jaguars and Los Angeles Rams, Garoppolo and the Niners will face far more difficult tests in the coming weeks. When things go wrong in those games, and chances are they will, the 49ers seem to have reached a point where they aren't dwelling on their mistakes. Some of that can be attributed to a team that's starting to learn how to win, and some of it can be credited to the quarterback. "When a ball is dropped or a play is missed or an interception is thrown, you really can't dwell on it," Goodwin said. "You have got to kind of have a short memory and move forward, because if you focus on that, you're just stuck in the past. This game moves so fast that you have to really just move on to the next play, whether it be a good or a bad play. So when we started out shaky like that, you've got a guy like Jimmy, who is like, ‘Hey, guys, it's all right, but we can't let it happen again.' Like, 'Let's go, let's get it going,' and he does a great job of managing the huddle and keeping everybody composed throughout the game." For a team that has long since been eliminated from postseason contention, the Niners haven't approached any of their recent games like a team with nothing to play for. It's a credit to the job Shanahan has done, the hard work his team has put in and, of course, to their magnetic new quarterback. The next three weeks figure to offer some ups and downs, but Garoppolo already has done enough in his first two starts to make one wonder just how high his ceiling can be when he gets a chance to fully absorb Shanahan's playbook and the Niners have a chance to add dynamic pieces around him. "I've only been here for a short time, so I don't know exactly what's changed or what hasn't," Garoppolo said. "I think we've got a little bit of momentum with us right now and we just need to keep plucking away day by day and just keep getting better. That's what it's all about, especially this time of year. You know, we only have three games left now, so we just have to keep getting better and good things will happen." There's a limit on just how good those things can be in 2017. But for the first time in a long time, Garoppolo has given the Niners and their fans a chance to dream big in 2018 and beyond.
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