In 2018, in an article about the weird 2017 season that Jameis Winston had (if I only knew what the future would hold!), there was one tidbit you might have missed: in  2017 season, Jimmy Garoppolo had the best 3rd down conversion rate in the league.  After being traded to the 49ers in midseason, Garoppolo picked up a first down on exactly half of his dropbacks (28 of 56).

Garoppolo did not repeat this success in limited playing time in 2018 (6 of 24); you won’t be surprised to learn that Patrick Mahomes (48%) led the NFL in this metric last season.

But this year? Well, Mahomes was once again very good…. he ranked 4th in the NFL in 3rd down conversion rate, throwing for 53 first downs on 123 dropbacks. But it was Garoppolo who led the league in this category: he threw for a first own on 65 of 143 third down pass plays (45%).

Over the last three NFL seasons, Andrew Luck (48%) has the best third down conversion rate in the NFL. But it’s Mahomes (45%) who is second and Garoppolo (44%) who is third. Which is just kind of weird, because, well, Garoppolo has not been all that outstanding otherwise.

Let’s take a closer look at the 2019 data. On 3rd or 4th downs, the 49ers (all Garoppolo) picked up a first down on 46.7% of all passing plays, easily the best rate in football. Now, you might think Garoppolo faces more easy third down situations than your average quarterback, and that’s somewhat true. He’s faced a good amount of third and short, but he’s also converted those at a good rate.

But where he has really excelled is on 3rd downs of between 6 and 11 yards: he’s converted 57% of those into first downs, more than 10% better than any other team in the league.

Is this sustainable? Probably not: after all, if Garoppolo was the best quarterback in the NFL, that would manifest itself more frequently than just on third-and-long. But it’s possible that he’s a bit underrated by conventional metrics, too, and his third down conversion rate is more representative of the type of player he is.

What do you think?