Kansas City Chiefs defensive lineman Frank Clark didn’t come away too impressed by Jimmy Garoppolo after Super Bowl LIV.
Clark trash-talked the San Francisco 49ers quarterback following the Chiefs’ 31-20 Super Bowl win, accusing the 49ers of relying on checkdowns because they weren’t confident enough in letting Garoppolo throw downfield.
“You paying the guy $140 million, $130 million, whatever he’s getting paid, man,” Clark told FOX Sports’ Peter Schrager, via Brian Witt of Yahoo Sports. “He’s gotta throw the ball. Obviously he didn’t do that. They threw for about 200 yards on checkdowns; that ain’t enough to win a game against us.”
Garoppolo is making $137.5 million over the course of his five-year deal, so Clark was pretty on point there. While “200 yards on checkdowns” is an exaggeration, there did seem to be some hesitancy on the part of the Niners to really unleash Garoppolo. Perhaps that was best evidenced late in the game, when they finally did so but he overthrew Emmanuel Sanders badly on what could have been a go-ahead touchdown with a better pass. Plenty of people theorized that a lack of trust in Garoppolo was part of the reason for the Niners’ more conservative calls, though Kyle Shanahan gave a different reason for them.
Ultimately, the 49ers quarterback went 20-of-31 for 219 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions. Those numbers are definitely a little disappointing.
Clark, meanwhile, has been trash-talking foes all throughout the playoffs. He’s not going to stop now that his team has won, that’s for sure.
