Jimmy Garoppolo says that he has been throwing into coverage on purpose

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo didn’t inspire much confidence after his first preseason game following last season’s ACL tear.

The former Patriots backup threw an interception and had a good share of deflected/nearly picked passes (1 of 6 passing in all) against Denver before a bounce-back game against Kansas City last week.

But there understandably was concern over Garoppolo’s ball security this preseason — he was fortunate to just have one pick. Yet, according to Garoppolo, all those risky passes have been on purpose. He said that he has been throwing ill-advised passes into coverage this preseason as a way to give his receivers practice with contested passes.

He said via NBC Sports:

“A big part of that is it still being preseason, or in practice, you try things like that. You know, during a real game, you wouldn’t make that throw or that decision, but there’s a trust factor between quarterback and . . . whoever’s catching the ball. The more you try those things, you see who’s going to make the play for you in a crucial situation.”

While that sort of makes sense in a way — these games don’t really count, so might as well work on stuff — the tape against Denver didn’t really support that explanation.

He had passes blocked at the line of scrimmage. A route was jumped on one near-interception, and on his pick, he threw across his body while getting pressured.

At the very least, Garoppolo made a solid attempt at spinning the narrative and calming any reason to panic for, well, two weeks.