Is Steve Young right?

[iHATEdodgers]

Twice is repeatedly. Smith had an ok game today. Not a great one. He threw two great deep balls, one of which was dropped, and he threw two awful deep balls. He also (thankfully) overthrew Davis on a very ill-advised ball when he was bracketed by defenders down field.

I define twice as twice but hey you know I don't disagree that he doesn't seem to throw that particular pass very well.

I don't know what the numbers are on deep passing but 50% on passes over 20 yards is respectable. It's not great but I'll take it anyway.

 

[vvoland]

And he has guys wide open down the sidelines and he misses them by eight yards. Out of bounds.

i don't think that was unintentional. imo, when throwing the deep sideline pass to edwards, smith kept it in bounds, though not a great throw. if he expected edwards to make the move inside, it was a better throw than it looked, but either way, not great. that said, the throws to ginn, he definitely cheated. he does not trust ginn [would you] and cheats to the 'safe zone' of WR or incomplete. also, with ginn being the no 4 WR for most of the year [when edwards and morgan were healthy] how many reps do you think smith had throwing it to ginn down the sideline? i'd say not many.

one other thing i'd say about ginn, he looks like a terrible route runner. i had very high hopes for him when he came here but i see why he's been a flameout at WR. he has speed but not confidence in his routes and is constantly down/up shifting [so to speak] and taking very poor angles to the ball. the pass to ginn i mentioned a on the previous page was not in reference to the ravens game but the ball that bounced a yard or two in front of him in the endzone 3-4 weeks ago. should have been a completion but the angle to the ball seemed terrible.

i don't want this to sound like i'm absolving smith and putting everythign on the WR here. so let me reiterate: smith has trouble with accuracy down the sideline on a deep go route. he absolutely does. what got me into this debate was crimson stating he lacked the arm strength to make the throw. i think he has a fairly strong arm that is capable of making all the throws necessary. considering how accurate smith is on seams, long posts, deep outs, etc.. i think his lack thereof on the deep go is due to a lack of practice, rapport, and trust [probably both in himself on that pattern and the WR in question]. considering the short training camp, the new [yet again] offensive system and the type of player we have at WR [not exactly burners], i think the one passing play that was virtually left off the practice game plan was the deep sideline route.

these are all reasons why i think smith's ceiling is far higher than we've seen this year. my biggest concerns are still o-line first, our WR second, and smith a distant 3rd. iupati holding and pass protection [just today's game], snyder/rachal at RG, and our overall lack of ability to pick up zone blitzes and simple stunts is what really worries me.

 

[clyde_carbon]

Yes, Smith misses receivers on purpose. He just waits for the perfect time to strike.

 

[yossarian]

Smith obviously has accuracy problems on certain throws. I guess to me the question is whether or not a full training camp with Harbaugh and his receivers will improve his communication with them and his accuracy. I don't know, I think after this many years in the league he is as accurate as he is going to get, but maybe Harbaugh has tricks up his sleeve to help him. As for SB quality offense, to me it is just a matter of how the team is constructed. SOme might argue that Green Bay or New Orleans don't have Super Bowl quality defenses, but no one is running around saying they aren't legitimate Super Bowl contenders. We have a stout defense, that's the strength of our team, along with a relatively smart, controlled offense. That's been good enough in the past sometimes.

 

[threelittleturds]

Only question I have is how you figured out how to use a computer.

For 6 years I was accused of being one of, if not the, biggest Smith lovers on the planet.

Now I'm a Smith hater?

Tell me Geraint, does Alex Smith throw the ball deep down the sideline well?

Damn Smith lovers...

I made the mistake of thinking Smith changed early in the season when I made that thread about "harbaugh the QB whisperer" although as the season has progressed it seems pretty clear that nothing has changed in Alex Smith's game. He is just in a situation where he isn't being asked to throw the team on his shoulders and completely carry the offense.

Smith is the same as he's always been. He is indecisive at times, occasionally doesn't see the open WR for easy TDs, takes some bad sacks, overthrows receivers.. etc. Then sometimes he's on fire, hitting guys with perfect passes, escaping pressure to make a play, and the consistent thing of making great passes to VD who does his part by dropping them.

I guess it is easy to fall into the trap that he's playing much better as the 49ers are 10-2, I fell for it... I believe his INTs are down because of better coaching and a better offensive system for his ability, it's not like he turned some major corner in his accuracy. It's just the coaching staff knows and recognizes his strengths and weaknesses. Then designs plays to those strengths. Instead of Nolan and Singletary trying to force him into being Tom Brady in order for the 49ers to win.

Anywho.. efff you Smith lovers. {sarcasm}

 

[MW49ers5]

Yes, Smith misses receivers on purpose. He just waits for the perfect time to strike.

It's all part of the plan, man - all part of the plan!

Alex is just toying with the defenders. Luring them into a false sense that he's completely inept at hitting a deep sideline pass - get them play soft on a 9 outside the numbers - then - BOOM BITCH!!

Today was the final piece of the strategy. Ginn, open by 15 yards down both sidelines - two passes that fell just short of the upper deck - Oh, yeah - It's all part of the plan... GB is not going to know what hit 'em!

 

[clyde_carbon]

It's all part of the plan, man - all part of the plan!

Alex is just toying with the defenders. Luring them into a false sense that he's completely inept at hitting a deep sideline pass - get them play soft on a 9 outside the numbers - then - BOOM BITCH!!

Today was the final piece of the strategy. Ginn, open by 15 yards down both sidelines - two passes that fell just short of the upper deck - Oh, yeah - It's all part of the plan... GB is not going to know what hit 'em!

Exactly. Let's keep in mind that St. Louis has sent 10 DBs to IR this season, so this platform was perfect for Alex to perfect his deception.

 

[MW49ers5]

Exactly. Let's keep in mind that St. Louis has sent 10 DBs to IR this season, so this platform was perfect for Alex to perfect his deception.

Oh Yeah, Fucking Beautiful!!

 

[Flyingiguana]

at what point does it not become deception? for some fans it seems like it never will reach that point.

 

[vvoland]

Yes, Smith misses receivers on purpose. He just waits for the perfect time to strike.

perhaps my statement was misleading. i did not mean to imply that the ball 8 yds out of bounds was intentional. my implication, which i believe i made rather clear in the post, is that on certain throws, especially to ginn, smith cheats, is hesitant, and lacks confidence in both, his throw, and the receiver. he errs on the side of caution.. a ball out of bounds can produce an INC or a great catch. as opposed to the throw to edwards where he trusted his receiver a bit too much, led him inside, and threw a pick. i would, however, expect a more substantive and respectful reply in the vein of imac's or crimson's posts.

 

[mem49er]

So i should say things that are untrue if it has anything to do with any 49ers player being wrong? Can't ban me if you aren't a mod

I'm working on a super-secret promotion. Maybe just a one-day term.

 

[deep9er]

Smith obviously has accuracy problems on certain throws. I guess to me the question is whether or not a full training camp with Harbaugh and his receivers will improve his communication with them and his accuracy. I don't know, I think after this many years in the league he is as accurate as he is going to get, but maybe Harbaugh has tricks up his sleeve to help him. As for SB quality offense, to me it is just a matter of how the team is constructed. SOme might argue that Green Bay or New Orleans don't have Super Bowl quality defenses, but no one is running around saying they aren't legitimate Super Bowl contenders. We have a stout defense, that's the strength of our team, along with a relatively smart, controlled offense. That's been good enough in the past sometimes.

yep, Alex Smith is playing as well as he ever will, said this five or six games ago. for now and rest of this season, not complaining cause didn't think he'd do it from the get go.

now as we finish the season, everyone's stats should improve a little, and everyone here saw it coming. sure enough, Alex Smith had a good rating against the hapless Rams, but just watching him play (no stats), you can see he's not taking the next step up. if he hasn't done it by now, he's not going to sorry to say.

that said, we're also in a tough spot not having someone else ready? so he'll be ok continuing as our stop gap QB, we almost have no choice.

 

[deep9er]

See, that's the problem right there. Deep doesn't even know what he means.

no, its you who doesn't know, but nice try.

most fans like me will just look at other offenses and KNOW they're SB caliber. in your case, you go to our run stats and then claim we're SB caliber.

you also claim this offense has "great potential"??!! please, you're likely the only one who'll claim this offense has great potential?

while i did cite teams with good passing offenses, the intent was to show you just know which offenses (not just passing and not just running) are good. we fans just know which offenses can contend for a SB win, and which can't.

is it impossible for us to win the SB with this offense? of course its possible, but then you have to add our defense and ST's. but the team isn't the topic., its OFFENSE.

 

[vvoland]

no, its you who doesn't know, but nice try.

most fans like me will just look at other offenses and KNOW they're SB caliber. in your case, you go to our run stats and then claim we're SB caliber.

you also claim this offense has "great potential"??!! please, you're likely the only one who'll claim this offense has great potential?

while i did cite teams with good passing offenses, the intent was to show you just know which offenses (not just passing and not just running) are good. we fans just know which offenses can contend for a SB win, and which can't.

is it impossible for us to win the SB with this offense? of course its possible, but then you have to add our defense and ST's. but the team isn't the topic., its OFFENSE.

crimson and i have debated alex smith's merits in this thread but i'll certainly agree with him that his offense has great potential. our O-line is one of the youngest in the league, a. smith can definitely improve further, and our WR corps have been very inconsistent and riddled with injuries. if edwards is back in time to build some rapport with smith pre-playoffs, if JH opens up the playbook a bit further during, what should be, our 1st round bye, we should improve greatly on O.

further, the biggest piece missing this season was the lack of a training camp. smith and JH both seem very cerebral. i don't think they'll call/execute a play unless they're very confident that all 11 guys are on the same page. next year, with the same cast of characters, this offense will be far better than this year. i still hope for a gamebreaker at WR because they're more common and easier to find than brady, brees, or rodgers. outside of those three, i don't think a. smith is a huge downgrade from anyone else in this league.. [newton is more talented but not polished enough yet..]

 

[Crimsoncrew]

no, its you who doesn't know, but nice try.

most fans like me will just look at other offenses and KNOW they're SB caliber. in your case, you go to our run stats and then claim we're SB caliber.

you also claim this offense has "great potential"??!! please, you're likely the only one who'll claim this offense has great potential?

while i did cite teams with good passing offenses, the intent was to show you just know which offenses (not just passing and not just running) are good. we fans just know which offenses can contend for a SB win, and which can't.

is it impossible for us to win the SB with this offense? of course its possible, but then you have to add our defense and ST's. but the team isn't the topic., its OFFENSE.

It would seem that's not the case, Deep, since someone else in this thread also asked what you meant. But you are right about one thing. I don't have the faintest clue what you mean by a super bowl offense that distinguishes it from a good offense or a great offense. So again, please explain it beyond saying, "People know what I mean." That's a cop out.

We've had effectively this same discussion for years now with the draft, and you have never actually qualified what "par" is. There is absolutely no reason to expect you to change now. I will simply say that referring to something as a "super bowl caliber offense" is dumb. It's a meaningless phrase. Teams make the super bowl, not offenses. That's why the Pats beat the Rams, and the Giants beat the Pats, and the Steelers have been so good recently.

Finally, I do believe this team has significant potential on the offensive side of the ball. In part that's because I think the offense has been pretty lousy to date. It's just unrealized potential at this point, and I'm very skeptical they will achieve it, but there is a lot of talent on that side of the ball. I see Smith as the biggest limiting factor right now, and he's a big one, but they've got four weeks to work out the kinks.

Even if we fully achieve our potential, the offense will almost certainly still be worse than the best in the league because Smith just isn't that good. That doesn't mean it's lacking potential. Though I have no problem with people disagreeing with me on that front.

 

[iHATEdodgers]

no, its you who doesn't know, but nice try.

most fans like me will just look at other offenses and KNOW they're SB caliber. in your case, you go to our run stats and then claim we're SB caliber.

you also claim this offense has "great potential"??!! please, you're likely the only one who'll claim this offense has great potential?

while i did cite teams with good passing offenses, the intent was to show you just know which offenses (not just passing and not just running) are good. we fans just know which offenses can contend for a SB win, and which can't.

is it impossible for us to win the SB with this offense? of course its possible, but then you have to add our defense and ST's. but the team isn't the topic., its OFFENSE.

Well that's the thing I guess, the offense doesn't operate in a vacuum. I would not argue that our offense is equal to GB, NO, NE, but offensive output is obviously effected by the quality of the opposing defense.

I don't think you can consider whether or not an offense is "superbowl caliber" without considering the team as a whole. At least not in reality.

But in fantasy no it is not "superbowl quality" so we would not win the fantasy superbowl. We have a legitimate chance to win a real superbowl though.

 

[vvoland]

It would seem that's not the case, Deep, since someone else in this thread also asked what you meant. But you are right about one thing. I don't have the faintest clue what you mean by a super bowl offense that distinguishes it from a good offense or a great offense. So again, please explain it beyond saying, "People know what I mean." That's a cop out.

We've had effectively this same discussion for years now with the draft, and you have never actually qualified what "par" is. There is absolutely no reason to expect you to change now. I will simply say that referring to something as a "super bowl caliber offense" is dumb. It's a meaningless phrase. Teams make the super bowl, not offenses. That's why the Pats beat the Rams, and the Giants beat the Pats, and the Steelers have been so good recently.

Finally, I do believe this team has significant potential on the offensive side of the ball. In part that's because I think the offense has been pretty lousy to date. It's just unrealized potential at this point, and I'm very skeptical they will achieve it, but there is a lot of talent on that side of the ball. I see Smith as the biggest limiting factor right now, and he's a big one, but they've got four weeks to work out the kinks.

Even if we fully achieve our potential, the offense will almost certainly still be worse than the best in the league because Smith just isn't that good. That doesn't mean it's lacking potential. Though I have no problem with people disagreeing with me on that front.

the first part of that i'm not entirely sold on so let me ask, aside from gore, who's a top tier talent [not a top 10 pick, but top 10 at his position]. i used to think VD is the best offensive tight end in the L but he has very erratic hands and seems to have lapses in concentration as well.

as for the second half of the bolded sentence, i don't want to drudge up the novel i wrote earlier in this thread but i'm curious if you still think its smith's arm strength thats the issue? i agree that he doesn't keep his eyes downfield as often as i'd like him to but i do he steps up in the pocket fairly well [its just we often let pressure come straight up the middle, not on the edge, where it should] and can make all the throws necessary.

 

[deep9er]

crimson and i have debated alex smith's merits in this thread but i'll certainly agree with him that his offense has great potential. our O-line is one of the youngest in the league, a. smith can definitely improve further, and our WR corps have been very inconsistent and riddled with injuries. if edwards is back in time to build some rapport with smith pre-playoffs, if JH opens up the playbook a bit further during, what should be, our 1st round bye, we should improve greatly on O.

further, the biggest piece missing this season was the lack of a training camp. smith and JH both seem very cerebral. i don't think they'll call/execute a play unless they're very confident that all 11 guys are on the same page. next year, with the same cast of characters, this offense will be far better than this year. i still hope for a gamebreaker at WR because they're more common and easier to find than brady, brees, or rodgers. outside of those three, i don't think a. smith is a huge downgrade from anyone else in this league.. [newton is more talented but not polished enough yet..]

ok, if you also think "FAR BETTER", fine.

IMO.......and again, we're only talking offense.....

1. our QB is 'maxed out', GLAD he's playing to his max but he's not going to take another step up. if he was, he'd have taken it by now.

2. for our O-line, if they were going to get MUCH better, they'd be showing it now. agree they can and should get a little better, but a 'little' doesn't equate to 'great'. also recall Iupati and Davis has started since all of LAST season, its now game 13.

our offense will get a little better cause there's no reason not to, but i disagree with 'great potential' and 'far better'....with the same cast of characters.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

the first part of that i'm not entirely sold on so let me ask, aside from gore, who's a top tier talent [not a top 10 pick, but top 10 at his position]. i used to think VD is the best offensive tight end in the L but he has very erratic hands and seems to have lapses in concentration as well.

as for the second half of the bolded sentence, i don't want to drudge up the novel i wrote earlier in this thread but i'm curious if you still think its smith's arm strength thats the issue? i agree that he doesn't keep his eyes downfield as often as i'd like him to but i do he steps up in the pocket fairly well [its just we often let pressure come straight up the middle, not on the edge, where it should] and can make all the throws necessary.

We don't have a boatload of top-10 talent, but neither does GB outside of Rodgers and Jennings, or the Saints outside of Brees and Graham, or the Pats outside of Brady and Gronkowski. We have a nice 1-2 punch at RB with Gore and Hunter. Davis and Walker are very good receiving TEs. Davis has reverted to his early-career inconsistencies, but we know he can play much better ball. Edwards has been a very effective receiver in his career. Crabtree has come on the past few weeks and shows some signs of becoming a good, if perhaps not great WR. Kyle Williams has been very dynamic in two of the last three games. And these guys complement each other well, as I mentioned in the KW thread. The OL has tremendous physical talent. Perhaps more importantly, outside of QB we don't have a glaring weakness. I think there is more than enough there for this team to be a good one on offense. But we have a long way to go.

Re: Smith, I think it's a combination of a number of things that continues to hold him back. I do think his deep ball accuracy will limit his effectiveness, and some of that seems to be a product of his arm strength. He's still not great at anticipating routes. His pocket presence is still mediocre. He doesn't do a great job of reading the blitz and exploiting it. Now, many of these things have improved this year, some dramatically. But at the end of the day, IMO it still adds up to him being an average QB who is miles behind the best in the league. And when it comes to the playoffs, that's going to be measuring stick.

 

[vvoland]

ok, if you also think "FAR BETTER", fine.

IMO.......and again, we're only talking offense.....

1. our QB is 'maxed out', GLAD he's playing to his max but he's not going to take another step up. if he was, he'd have taken it by now.

2. for our O-line, if they were going to get MUCH better, they'd be showing it now. agree they can and should get a little better, but a 'little' doesn't equate to 'great'. also recall Iupati and Davis has started since all of LAST season, its now game 13.

our offense will get a little better cause there's no reason not to, but i disagree with 'great potential' and 'far better'....with the same cast of characters.

considering the lack of continuity [not just OC & systems, but also the receiving corps] what leads you to believe that? i've heard the 'he'd have taken it by now' about alex smith since his 2nd or 3rd year. you don't think an off-season with a coach like JH, building great rapport with all of his WR, getting more explosive playmakers at wideout, or the o-line getting better in pass protection will help him elevate his play? he's been far better and more consistent this year than years past. yet, you seem to think there's no more room for improvement? how much better would his stats look and this offense would be if he didn't have so many drops on such big plays? the crabs drop on 3rd down and v.d.'s TD last night were in that one game. each game there seems to be critical drops or balls that bounce for picks..

as far as the o-line goes, since all of last season sound like a really long time, but they're rookies and davis was one of the youngest players in that draft playing tackle. with a new center and the hole we have at RG, i don't think the pieces were really there for them to playing like pro-bowlers at this point. that said, iupati is GREAT in run blocking and davis has had some verrrry good games this year. its about putting that together for long stretches, not short spurts, and i do think another year, TC, and more reps will definitely help. just look at the leap davis took this year. he was atrocious last year and has been pretty good this year [great at times, sub-par at other times]. why do you think he'll stop progressing? why do you assume iupati has peaked [especially in pass protection]? why do you think fixing our problems at RG won't help the line overall?

i know some of these statements contradict my 'with the same players' statement from the earlier post. but we obviously will have a draft and should attract a few FAs so, in reality, there should be some upgrade in talent. but even if all of those players are on D, you don't think TC for edwards, crabs, smith, and the o-line will help with confidence, understanding, and execution?