Cincinnati Bengals: The hype that is Jimmy G won’t measure up to Andy Dalton
By Steve Rivera
There remains a lot of hype about 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. But in Week 2, the best quarterback on the field will be Cincinnati Bengals veteran, Andy Dalton.
When the New England Patriots sent backup quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo to San Francisco, the fortunes for the 49ers were supposed to change and change dramatically. Two seasons later, fans in the Bay Area are still waiting. On Sunday, he’ll face a veteran quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals who by every metric, will be the better QB on the field.
So it goes for Jimmy G. and the hype that has yet to materialize. The Niners quarterback went down with a season-ending knee injury last season against the Kansas City Chiefs, and since then, things look to have stalled for San Francisco.
In Week 2, the best quarterback offering the most promise at the position is playing for Cincinnati. Andy Dalton had an epic kind of game against the Seattle Seahawks. The kind of game that has fans and pundits wondering if first-year head coach Zac Taylor might have the kind of touch his former boss in Los Angeles has.
In LA, Sean McVay has turned Jared Goff into a Super Bowl quarterback and LA’s newest multi-millionaire. It’s impossible to say the same fortunes await Dalton, but the veteran quarterback seems to have found a head coach who deploys an offensive game plan that caters to big numbers from the quarterback and receivers position.
It’ll be an interesting story on Sunday in Cincinnati. Both Dalton and Garoppolo have been toiling on teams below .500. In San Francisco, hopes are high Jimmy G. brings more than another finish at or near the bottom of the NFC West. Bengals fans are hoping Taylor does the same thing for Cincinnati.
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Look for Dalton to be something of an X-Factor for a game plan still evolving for Cincinnati. As much as the NFL world has been talking about Garoppolo lifting the Niners, it’ll be Dalton who has the better Sunday. Come Monday, maybe the Cincinnati quarterback will be the one getting the hype Garoppolo hasn’t really earned.