Football training camp is drudgery under a pitiless summer sun. It’s numbing repetition. Baseball’s spring training is synonymous with refreshing breezes. Football with a perpetual bead of sweat on the end of your nose.
I hear some of the players aren’t too fond of it, either.
Jimmy Garoppolo can’t wait.
The San Francisco 49ers quarterback, coming back from a left ACL tear suffered in the third game of last season, checked in with the local media on Tuesday. He talked like a guy who will set multiple wake-up calls for the first day of practice, so enthused he is to be back.
Back as in: All in, right away.
“The rehab process has gone really well,” Garoppolo said, according to NBC Sports Bay Area. “Knock on wood. We haven’t had any setbacks. OTAs went about as well as I could have hoped for and now for training camp hopefully we’ll be full go with team drills and all that stuff. We’re moving in the right direction. We’ve just got to keep going day by day and keep stacking them together. It’s a long process, but we’ve come this far, so why stop now, right?”
Garoppolo said he has no restrictions and doesn’t envision being put on the physically unable to perform (PUP) list. Understanding that knees can have minds of their own, he sounds optimistic and realistic at the same time.
“The training staff, the coaches, we’ve kind of put together a plan and everything like that,” he said. “We’ll kind of assess the situation as we get closer to it. I’m good to go, finally.”
As part of his offseason regimen, Garoppolo said he worked with quarterback coaches Tom House and Adam Dedeaux.
Also a priority for Garoppolo during the offseason was a suit drive held by the Men’s Wearhouse. “It allows men and women to make a good first impression,” he said in a phone interview with NBC Sports Bay Area. “I think it applies to the whole football mindset of look good, feel good, play good.”
The team’s training camp begins on July 26 at Santa Clara. There are 11 sessions the public can attend — July 27-30 and Aug. 1-8 (except for Aug. 5).
Tickets are required and are available to season ticket holders at www.49ers.com/tickets/trainingcamp. All fans can request tickets starting Friday, July 12, starting at noon.
