Grant Cohn on Smith's Strengths and Weaknesses

[ViperVisor]

Reductio ad absurdum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[clyde_carbon]

A team should give me 14mil per year. I won't throw a single INT.

LOL!

 

[Crimsoncrew]

Guys. How stupid do you think we are?

Were over 100 replies in and it should obvious something more than pee-wee football level of knowledge is needed to counter what I have posted.

imac_21's question is retarded.

Making plays takes maybe not a backseat but it is riding shotgun. A QB can't just make a TD happen. WR has to do something right to some degree.

A INT can be completely on a QB handing it to the other team. Then there is no chance for a QB RB or Kicker or anyone to make a play to score.

Eli excelled it other ways so he made up the difference and had a slightly better year.

Viper, that's just silly. The more you throw the ball, the more it will be intercepted. Every single team in the league would jump at the chance to take Drew Brees' 15 turnovers over Alex Smith's 7. If your argument is correct, that wouldn't be the case. Hell, Montana only had one season in which he only turned the ball over seven times, and that was while playing 11 games for the Chiefs. Was Smith's season better than any season Joe had in his career? Of course not.

There's no doubt that turnovers are extremely important. But to say they are the single most important thing for an NFL QB is just ridiculous. As Clyde noted, any QB could avoid turnovers simply by never taking a chance with the football. That's not a winning proposition in the NFL.

 

[Flyingiguana]

LOL, I can - today - go on a football field against an NFL team and not throw an INT. I'll just take sacks or throw the ball out of bounds every play. I won't throw throw a single INT.

Apparently that makes me a good QB.

o plz, i doubt you'd hit the sidelines!

 

[Flyingiguana]

Viper, that's just silly. The more you throw the ball, the more it will be intercepted. Every single team in the league would jump at the chance to take Drew Brees' 15 turnovers over Alex Smith's 7. If your argument is correct, that wouldn't be the case. Hell, Montana only had one season in which he only turned the ball over seven times, and that was while playing 11 games for the Chiefs. Was Smith's season better than any season Joe had in his career? Of course not.

There's no doubt that turnovers are extremely important. But to say they are the single most important thing for an NFL QB is just ridiculous. As Clyde noted, any QB could avoid turnovers simply by never taking a chance with the football. That's not a winning proposition in the NFL.

brees was a bit reckless. not to the degree of favre, but he needs to stop throwing the ball up for grabs so much.

we have our offensive philosophy, the saints have theirs. i think harbaugh would have fits if roman called plays like the saints. not to mention even with brees throwing we don't have the team to excel with that kind of play calling.

montana had great balance and i think that's eventually the td:int ratio smith should be at if he continues to develop.

 

[MHSL82]

Viper, that's just silly. The more you throw the ball, the more it will be intercepted. Every single team in the league would jump at the chance to take Drew Brees' 15 turnovers over Alex Smith's 7. If your argument is correct, that wouldn't be the case. Hell, Montana only had one season in which he only turned the ball over seven times, and that was while playing 11 games for the Chiefs. Was Smith's season better than any season Joe had in his career? Of course not.

There's no doubt that turnovers are extremely important. But to say they are the single most important thing for an NFL QB is just ridiculous. As Clyde noted, any QB could avoid turnovers simply by never taking a chance with the football. That's not a winning proposition in the NFL.

I feel that everybody is so set in what they think that everybody is over-compensating. I try not to do so, but get comments on how my posts are too long. I appear to hedge bets because I am not fully set in my beliefs. I try to distinquish but that leads to novels. There's always truth somewhere in the middle, but we keep pushing the extremes. We all want a complete QB; none of us believe we have seen one yet. Some believe it is in the backup and some believe it's Alex's potential. The vast majority don't think it's Alex and are unsure about Kaep being the complete package for 2012. My two least favorite colors are black and white (I know they're not technically colors). Grey suits me fine but it'd make a boring message board, I think.

 

[MHSL82]

brees was a bit reckless. not to the degree of favre, but he needs to stop throwing the ball up for grabs so much.

we have our offensive philosophy, the saints have theirs. i think harbaugh would have fits if roman called plays like the saints. not to mention even with brees throwing we don't have the team to excel with that kind of play calling.

montana had great balance and i think that's eventually the td:int ratio smith should be at if he continues to develop.

JUST FOR THE THE 2011 PLAYOFF GAME against the Saints, I didn't see many risky passes that paid off for Brees and I saw two INTs that either potentially were scoring drives or allowed us to score that'd have won it for them if he didn't throw it (all Brees drives are potential scores - which is a compliment for a Brees-like QB). But that was just one game and there were a few payoffs. By and large, the Saints benefitted from that style of play. They wouldn't have gotten as far if Brees was as hesitant as Alex. By and large, we benefitted from Alex's care with the ball; we wouldn't have gotten where we did with Alex trying to sling it like Brees every game. Is it so hard to comprehend that teams play certain ways due to their personnel? Having said that, I fully expect Alex to try and be less hesitant with the ball in 2012. I would be disappointed if he didn't. Our personnel was only as such because of the lack of playbook understanding. With full understanding of the playbook, if Alex plays the same, even I would say he's holding us back.

 

[Flyingiguana]

I feel that everybody is so set in what they think that everybody is over-compensating. I try not to do so, but get comments on how my posts are too long. I appear to hedge bets because I am not fully set in my beliefs. I try to distinquish but that leads to novels. There's always truth somewhere in the middle, but we keep pushing the extremes. We all want a complete QB; none of us believe we have seen one yet. Some believe it is in the backup and some believe it's Alex's potential. The vast majority don't think it's Alex and are unsure about Kaep being the complete package for 2012. My two least favorite colors are black and white (I know they're not technically colors). Grey suits me fine but it'd make a boring message board, I think.

well said

outside of an actual upgrade at qb i want to see if smith can take the next step after having his first full offseason with the same playbook and coaching staff.

 

[MHSL82]

well, I was waiting for a cliched post, have only had a few of those this thread

outside of an actual upgrade at qb i want to see if smith can take the next step after having his first full offseason with a good playbook and great coaching staff.

Fixed

 

[Crimsoncrew]

brees was a bit reckless. not to the degree of favre, but he needs to stop throwing the ball up for grabs so much.

we have our offensive philosophy, the saints have theirs. i think harbaugh would have fits if roman called plays like the saints. not to mention even with brees throwing we don't have the team to excel with that kind of play calling.

montana had great balance and i think that's eventually the td:int ratio smith should be at if he continues to develop.

So you would take Smith's performance over Brees' this year?

 

[Crimsoncrew]

I feel that everybody is so set in what they think that everybody is over-compensating. I try not to do so, but get comments on how my posts are too long. I appear to hedge bets because I am not fully set in my beliefs. I try to distinquish but that leads to novels. There's always truth somewhere in the middle, but we keep pushing the extremes. We all want a complete QB; none of us believe we have seen one yet. Some believe it is in the backup and some believe it's Alex's potential. The vast majority don't think it's Alex and are unsure about Kaep being the complete package for 2012. My two least favorite colors are black and white (I know they're not technically colors). Grey suits me fine but it'd make a boring message board, I think.

I try to keep an open mind, and I've supported Smith more and longer than most. But I think his season was objectively only a bit above average this year. IMO, we've seen a lot of ridiculous arguments that support Smith in this thread. Specifically: he was average in 2009 and 2010 because if you consider ALL QBs, he was average; and the most important thing a QB does is protect the football. These are terrible arguments. The first would justify not trying to upgrade any position. The second is just wrong. There have been some poor arguments attacking Smith as well, but generally I don't think that side of the debate has flown off the handle as much in this thread.

To be fair, I probably am a bit more harsh on Smith than he deserves lately. I just get sick and tired of Iguana blaming everyone but Smith - the OL, the receiver, the coaching - for the offensive struggles. It's a group effort, and we'd be foolish not to try to upgrade any/all of those spots if we can. It's unlikely to happen with Smith, but we need to continue to be critical of Smith IMO. He still has as many or more questions hovering around him as he answered this year.

 

[Flyingiguana]

So you would take Smith's performance over Brees' this year?

did i say that?

 

[Flyingiguana]

I try to keep an open mind, and I've supported Smith more and longer than most. But I think his season was objectively only a bit above average this year. IMO, we've seen a lot of ridiculous arguments that support Smith in this thread. Specifically: he was average in 2009 and 2010 because if you consider ALL QBs, he was average; and the most important thing a QB does is protect the football. These are terrible arguments. The first would justify not trying to upgrade any position. The second is just wrong. There have been some poor arguments attacking Smith as well, but generally I don't think that side of the debate has flown off the handle as much in this thread.

To be fair, I probably am a bit more harsh on Smith than he deserves lately. I just get sick and tired of Iguana blaming everyone but Smith - the OL, the receiver, the coaching - for the offensive struggles. It's a group effort, and we'd be foolish not to try to upgrade any/all of those spots if we can. It's unlikely to happen with Smith, but we need to continue to be critical of Smith IMO. He still has as many or more questions hovering around him as he answered this year.

i'm sick and tired of smith taking the blame beacuse of his past miscues when parts of the offense stinks. the offense is greatly limited by the line and lack of talent at wr. outside of vernon, nobody made plays in the playoffs. take out vernon and our wr's still can't do anything. a healthy edwards and morgan would have made our offense a lot better imo.

it's like upgrading my computer. i upgraded my weakest link which was my video card and now it's my cpu that needs an upgrade. if we upgrade the line and wr's then we can evaluate smith and the coaching staff more accurately. then we can see what is the weak link at that point.

 

[MHSL82]

I try to keep an open mind, and I've supported Smith more and longer than most. But I think his season was objectively only a bit above average this year. IMO, we've seen a lot of ridiculous arguments that support Smith in this thread. Specifically: he was average in 2009 and 2010 because if you consider ALL QBs, he was average; and the most important thing a QB does is protect the football. These are terrible arguments. The first would justify not trying to upgrade any position. The second is just wrong. There have been some poor arguments attacking Smith as well, but generally I don't think that side of the debate has flown off the handle as much in this thread.

To be fair, I probably am a bit more harsh on Smith than he deserves lately. I just get sick and tired of Iguana blaming everyone but Smith - the OL, the receiver, the coaching - for the offensive struggles. It's a group effort, and we'd be foolish not to try to upgrade any/all of those spots if we can. It's unlikely to happen with Smith, but we need to continue to be critical of Smith IMO. He still has as many or more questions hovering around him as he answered this year.

I may be wrong, but I describe it as this. There are a few people who will defend Alex no matter what and there are people waiting to blame him for everything no matter what. Most of us are in the middle. We don't see as many of the irrational people who blame Alex completely because our loss in the NFCC shows as much as we needed to know that last year wasn't good enough. The entire team, mind you (though I don't really blame the defense for being so good that they have two people in position to intercept twice).

As for the former, there has been SOOO many bad things that have happened to the Niners outside of Alex's control, so much harping at things that were within his control, and so many emphatic statements about him and euphemisms about others, that once he has some level of success, a few are unable to fight the pent up anger at the few that went overboard and the urge to cling to any success and boast.

There will be plenty of people who will unleash if Alex regresses. The fact of the matter is there were plenty of unreasonable people - on message boards, at bars, articles, etc. - but there's a time where we need to move on and look at what is being said now. I think most people were fair before and most are fair right now. And there are fewer people that are unfair now.

Then, as you can see, this is frustrating to not only those who don't like Alex, but also to reasonable people. Sometimes, people overcompensate to put down or pre-empt the Alex supporters. I have always found you to be reasonable, but to address your comment that perhaps you've been too harsh - I think that has a lot to do with the supporters, but also, as we get better, our expectations get higher and the level of play needed is emphasized. I don't think that should have a part in reassessing history - and I don't think you fell victim to that.

As for past play, '09, '10 I find that all the energy spent, if any, should be to explain the sub-par play, not to re-categorize it. There's a chance that it was slightly above par for the circumstances, but in a pure stat-based, winning-based world, I can't see it any differently than a sub-par season and there are many, including Alex, to blame for that. I've already released my novel on the 2011 season so I won't get into my opinion here. Believe it or not, I don't like being ridiculed.

 

[MHSL82]

i'm sick and tired of smith taking the blame beacuse of his past miscues when parts of the offense stinks. the offense is greatly limited by the line and lack of talent at wr. outside of vernon, nobody made plays in the playoffs. take out vernon and our wr's still can't do anything. a healthy edwards and morgan would have made our offense a lot better imo.

it's like upgrading my computer. i upgraded my weakest link which was my video card and now it's my cpu that needs an upgrade. if we upgrade the line and wr's then we can evaluate smith and the coaching staff more accurately. then we can see what is the weak link at that point.

We can accurately evaluate Smith in this offense. When we upgrade the oline and WR corp, we will accurately evaluate Smith in that offense. I really don't know what else we can do. I am hopeful that those upgrades will pay dividends but am not sure where the limit is. I'm the last person to put a cap on that. But, the fact of the matter is, we can't give credit to Smith for making that leap just like we can't give us the SB ring without actually playing the Patriots in Indy. Time will tell and hopefully Alex will get and make the most from the opportunity.

I'm all for people to not give disproportional blame to Smith for last year, specifically the Giants' game, but there's a limit to that line of thinking. I put the blame - Baldwin Fumble Call, KW fumbles, Offense, Receivers/Alex, Overthrow to KW (partly weather related, partly Alex), Playcalling, Coaching staff, other ref calls, other weather, defense. They can have differing percentages of blame and these are not in order of percentages of blame, but rather in what would I change first, second, or third in that game to ensure victory.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

So you would take Smith's performance over Brees' this year?

did i say that?

No, that's why I asked you to clarify your position. I said every team would take Brees over Smith. You responded by criticizing Brees. Thus, would you take Brees or Smith?

You still haven't answered, for the record.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

i'm sick and tired of smith taking the blame beacuse of his past miscues when parts of the offense stinks. the offense is greatly limited by the line and lack of talent at wr. outside of vernon, nobody made plays in the playoffs. take out vernon and our wr's still can't do anything. a healthy edwards and morgan would have made our offense a lot better imo.

it's like upgrading my computer. i upgraded my weakest link which was my video card and now it's my cpu that needs an upgrade. if we upgrade the line and wr's then we can evaluate smith and the coaching staff more accurately. then we can see what is the weak link at that point.

No one in the league, except possibly the Saints, has a complete offense. We took some lumps at the WR position this year with some injuries to important players. Other than that, we were remarkably healthy. We have an impact TE and a very good stable of RBs. And I think our WRs would look somewhat better with a better guy behind center. That cuts both ways, as Smith would look better with better receivers, as well. But I've regularly seen great QBs make their teammates great. I have not seen that from Alex Smith to date.

I completely reject the idea that we can't fairly evaluate Smith until we've got great players at every spot. If that's what we're waiting for, I'd just as soon move on now. And I can't help but wonder, what if Smith is the weak link? What if our receivers actually are pretty good, but Smith is holding them back? I don't think that's necessarily the case, but there is no doubt in my mind that we have more than enough talent on offense to be better than we were this season.

Smith came out in an unfamiliar offense and played well. Given his history, that's pretty remarkable. There is some reason to believe, with a full offseason and a second year in the system, that he will make a significant jump in his play. But until he makes that jump, I'm going to continue to wonder if we should upgrade.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

I may be wrong, but I describe it as this. There are a few people who will defend Alex no matter what and there are people waiting to blame him for everything no matter what. Most of us are in the middle. We don't see as many of the irrational people who blame Alex completely because our loss in the NFCC shows as much as we needed to know that last year wasn't good enough. The entire team, mind you (though I don't really blame the defense for being so good that they have two people in position to intercept twice).

As for the former, there has been SOOO many bad things that have happened to the Niners outside of Alex's control, so much harping at things that were within his control, and so many emphatic statements about him and euphemisms about others, that once he has some level of success, a few are unable to fight the pent up anger at the few that went overboard and the urge to cling to any success and boast.

There will be plenty of people who will unleash if Alex regresses. The fact of the matter is there were plenty of unreasonable people - on message boards, at bars, articles, etc. - but there's a time where we need to move on and look at what is being said now. I think most people were fair before and most are fair right now. And there are fewer people that are unfair now.

Then, as you can see, this is frustrating to not only those who don't like Alex, but also to reasonable people. Sometimes, people overcompensate to put down or pre-empt the Alex supporters. I have always found you to be reasonable, but to address your comment that perhaps you've been too harsh - I think that has a lot to do with the supporters, but also, as we get better, our expectations get higher and the level of play needed is emphasized. I don't think that should have a part in reassessing history - and I don't think you fell victim to that.

As for past play, '09, '10 I find that all the energy spent, if any, should be to explain the sub-par play, not to re-categorize it. There's a chance that it was slightly above par for the circumstances, but in a pure stat-based, winning-based world, I can't see it any differently than a sub-par season and there are many, including Alex, to blame for that. I've already released my novel on the 2011 season so I won't get into my opinion here. Believe it or not, I don't like being ridiculed.

I tend to find myself arguing against the extremes. On the ESPN board, I went round and round with Cazic and Cali and Smackdown defending Alex Smith. On this board, I find myself going round with Iguana, who I see as a SLIGHTLY more reasonable person on the other side of the debate. But just as it killed me when guys could see no good in Smith last year, it kills me when guys can see no wrong in him. To date, he is what he is: a middle-of-the-road NFL QB who is far from the worst guy in the league, but still has a long way to go to elevate his game.

 

[Flyingiguana]

No one in the league, except possibly the Saints, has a complete offense. We took some lumps at the WR position this year with some injuries to important players. Other than that, we were remarkably healthy. We have an impact TE and a very good stable of RBs. And I think our WRs would look somewhat better with a better guy behind center. That cuts both ways, as Smith would look better with better receivers, as well. But I've regularly seen great QBs make their teammates great. I have not seen that from Alex Smith to date.

I completely reject the idea that we can't fairly evaluate Smith until we've got great players at every spot. If that's what we're waiting for, I'd just as soon move on now. And I can't help but wonder, what if Smith is the weak link? What if our receivers actually are pretty good, but Smith is holding them back? I don't think that's necessarily the case, but there is no doubt in my mind that we have more than enough talent on offense to be better than we were this season.

Smith came out in an unfamiliar offense and played well. Given his history, that's pretty remarkable. There is some reason to believe, with a full offseason and a second year in the system, that he will make a significant jump in his play. But until he makes that jump, I'm going to continue to wonder if we should upgrade.

crabtree couldn't get seperation at all. the pocket was constantly blown up from the inside out and pass rushers were going untouched.

that has nothing to do with who is under center. the issues at wr and the line need to be addressed. if they are addressed both our running game and passing game will be able to reach it's potential, but we can't have practice squad players and marginal starters out there.

smith has shown glimpses and if we had another playmaker to go with vernon he might have somewhere to actually throw the ball when teams adjust their coverage to take out vernon. wtf did crabtree show? for part of the giants game i thought he wasn't playing.

right now you're saying smith is the problem. just like many were saying early in the season that gore was washed up. blocking schemes are changed and a couple new starters on offense and bang, gore looks much better running the ball.

 

[Flyingiguana]

No, that's why I asked you to clarify your position. I said every team would take Brees over Smith. You responded by criticizing Brees. Thus, would you take Brees or Smith?

You still haven't answered, for the record.

who the fuck wouldn't take brees? but at the end of the day, brees was watching the nfc championship.

back when brees was being called a bust, i wanted us to trade for him. brees reached his ceiling. now we need to see what smith's ceiling is.