The San Francisco 49ers offense seemed to take on a new life when Jimmy Garoppolo took over as starter, and there is plenty of evidence to back it up. Locker on 49ers writer Chris Wilson tweeted out these two graphs showing the 49ers points per drive and scoring percentage.

#49ers with Garoppolo led the #NFL in points-per-drive, even though they had the highest FG-to-TD rate in the league. How? The Niners scored on an outlandish 62% of Garoppolo's drives. #GoNiners #49wz pic.twitter.com/jkZz4TD2tK — Chris Wilson (@cgawilson) January 28, 2018

It is not surprising that both statistics shot up considerably when Garoppolo took over as starting quarterback. What is crazy is the scoring percentage, as Chris points out. It’s not a completely fair comparison given that Garoppolo started five games, and things might even out a bit over time. But for our purposes of considering how improved the 49ers were with Jimmy G at quarterback, I can live with pointing it out.

One thing to take away from this is the 49ers pressing need for red zone help. The return of Pierre Garçon should boost this to some degree, but the 49ers need to continue finding long-term options for the red zone. They have some young options to develop on the roster, but there is always room for more big-bodied pass catchers. I have to think that will be relatively high on the 49ers list of priorities this offseason.