Manning chooses Broncos

[Flyingiguana]

You have a short memory - I don't know about the other QB's but Brees needed 5 TO's and OT to comeback vs. the Vikings on their way to winning the SB.

Look, I'm not at all suggesting that we don't need a new QB but this TO/comeback argument is a ridiculous litmus test to determine that.

it's the same nitpicky crap ppl pull all the time. smith is a solid starter until we can find something better. a healthy manning would be great, but that isn't an issue now.

i know i will get kicked in the balls for saying this. but i wouldnt be surprised if smith puts up a better season than manning next year. the colts were going downhill before manning was hurt. if his arm is say 80% he might end up below his 2010 numbers. 90 passer rating and sub 7 ypa isn't what denver would be paying that money for.

 

[wartyOne]

uhm welker is a #1, you're an idiot. i'm not responding to your stupid posts...

Sorry, I can't resist. Welker is a slot receiver. Gronkowski was CLEARLY the number one receiving option in that offense. You obviously don't know the difference.

You have no idea what you're talking about. You calling somebody an idiot is totally baseless.

But I guess it takes one to think it knows one. Right?

 

[Flyingiguana]

ok i will break my new rule and be done.

i'm talking about recievers not tight ends. tight ends are not covered by cornerbacks. welker opens up the passing game so gronk can get his looks. crabtree has webster humping his leg so the giants can turn their attention to vernon.

now if crabtree is the #2 and we have a healthy braylon edwards as a #1, crabtree would be going up against the giants 2nd cover corner. if the giants try to put webster on edwards, smith would be able to abuse webster all day and night.

 

[dredinis21]

I am so tired of the bashing of the rest of the supporting cast while Viper, Bemular, and Flying continue to ignore the fact that only one of the players on offense has his hand on the trigger of every fucking play.

I have some stats for the Smith Trifecta to look up:

1.) Distance of passes traveled in the air by Smith to WR PRIOR to YAC.
2.) Completion % for passes under 15 yds prior to YAC
3.) Completion % for passes over 15 yds prior to YAC
4.) Average time Smith held onto the ball on 3 step drops
5.) Average time Smith held onto the ball on 5 step drops
6.) Average time Smith held onto the ball on 7 step drops

Or if you don't want to look these up, use your memory to realize that his OL was pretty good, especially the last 10 games of the season. I would also venture to say that after Chilo was kicked out of the starting lineup, many of the sacks Smith took were a result of his inability to call proper line reads. The only game where that was not necessarily the case was the Ravens game, where they brought 5+ more often then not (seemingly). No holding penalties by BOTH of your OT all season long tells me that both Davis and Staley were above average in pass protection when they were able to square up on a defender but sacks given up may have had more to do with wrong line reads then individual suckitude.

As far as Smith's WR are concerned, the idea that the WR weren't holding onto the ball is no more true or false then the notion that Smith didn't throw to them accurately enough for them to do anything with it. For every drop you can point to, I can point to an errant throw out on the flat to Gore, or a throw that Morgan or Crabtree had to high jump for, thus stopping their ability for YAC. As a matter of fact, one of my biggest gripes about Smith is his inaccuracy on a wide assortment of throws on the throw tree. He seems to have Davis' seam route down well, but doesn't hit a man in stride much at all. I am actually surprised when he checks it to Gore in the flat and actually hits him on the run.

My definition of a "very good" QB is someone who throws TDs, first and foremost. Second, they must pass accurately to most, if not all, the throws on the Route Tree. Third, he must be able to make lemonade out of lemons when a play breaks down and have the courage to pull the trigger on throws that conventional football wisdom may cringe at. When you attach stats to my definition, Alex Smith is NOT "very good", or even "good", but rather "very average".

I like the guy and am impressed with his moxie, his handling of the fucked up situations this organization consistently put him through prior to Harbaugh. But if we are going to give Harbaugh kudos for the turnaround of this season, we must also admit that one of the things of genius he did was make this offense work by maximizing the strengths of his personnel while hiding the weaknesses, i.e. Smith's obvious limitations as a QB.

 

[dredinis21]

ok i will break my new rule and be done.

i'm talking about recievers not tight ends. tight ends are not covered by cornerbacks. welker opens up the passing game so gronk can get his looks. crabtree has webster humping his leg so the giants can turn their attention to vernon.

now if crabtree is the #2 and we have a healthy braylon edwards as a #1, crabtree would be going up against the giants 2nd cover corner. if the giants try to put webster on edwards, smith would be able to abuse webster all day and night.

Some would argue the other way around. Gronk not only gets LB as well as CB guarding him, but he often times has safety help over the top, which then opens up the middle of the field for Welker. You need to have a standard understanding of offensive scheme to have this argument, which you have not shown the ability to digest.

 

[Bemular]

it's the same nitpicky crap ppl pull all the time. smith is a solid starter until we can find something better. a healthy manning would be great, but that isn't an issue now.

i know i will get kicked in the balls for saying this. but i wouldnt be surprised if smith puts up a better season than manning next year. the colts were going downhill before manning was hurt. if his arm is say 80% he might end up below his 2010 numbers. 90 passer rating and sub 7 ypa isn't what denver would be paying that money for.

I have no problem with Smith tossin the rock to start 2012 and I see no reason not to expect he will improve if even just a little. but, overall I expect Harbaugh will expect more from Smith in 2012 and as long as Smith is meeting or exceeding those expectations he will remain the starter. No brainer

LOL, yeah your stones just got put on a wanted poster - I don't think your idea is that far fetched however. I think it will take some time for Manning to adjust to life in an outdoor stadium at 5280 among other challenges.

 

[Flyingiguana]

a good tight end does open things up for a wr. burress said playing next to shockey made things so much easier. fact is welker had almost as many receptions as gronk was targeted.

crabtree is a wr. we need a wr who can crack the top 16 at the very least when it comes to yards.

 

[dredinis21]

a good tight end does open things up for a wr. burress said playing next to shockey made things so much easier. fact is welker had almost as many receptions as gronk was targeted.
crabtree is a wr. we need a wr who can crack the top 16 at the very least when it comes to yards.

And doesn't this prove what I JUST typed? The attention the defense paid to stopping Gronk opened things up for Welker, hence the amount of receptions. In years prior, it was Moss' vertical game that opened things up for Welker. Either way, Welker was the recipient of the direct threat one of his teammates posed to the opposing defense.

 

[Bemular]

I am so tired of the bashing of the rest of the supporting cast while Viper, Bemular, and Flying continue to ignore the fact that only one of the players on offense has his hand on the trigger of every fucking play.

I have some stats for the Smith Trifecta to look up:

1.) Distance of passes traveled in the air by Smith to WR PRIOR to YAC.
2.) Completion % for passes under 15 yds prior to YAC
3.) Completion % for passes over 15 yds prior to YAC
4.) Average time Smith held onto the ball on 3 step drops
5.) Average time Smith held onto the ball on 5 step drops
6.) Average time Smith held onto the ball on 7 step drops

Or if you don't want to look these up, use your memory to realize that his OL was pretty good, especially the last 10 games of the season. I would also venture to say that after Chilo was kicked out of the starting lineup, many of the sacks Smith took were a result of his inability to call proper line reads. The only game where that was not necessarily the case was the Ravens game, where they brought 5+ more often then not (seemingly). No holding penalties by BOTH of your OT all season long tells me that both Davis and Staley were above average in pass protection when they were able to square up on a defender but sacks given up may have had more to do with wrong line reads then individual suckitude.

As far as Smith's WR are concerned, the idea that the WR weren't holding onto the ball is no more true or false then the notion that Smith didn't throw to them accurately enough for them to do anything with it. For every drop you can point to, I can point to an errant throw out on the flat to Gore, or a throw that Morgan or Crabtree had to high jump for, thus stopping their ability for YAC. As a matter of fact, one of my biggest gripes about Smith is his inaccuracy on a wide assortment of throws on the throw tree. He seems to have Davis' seam route down well, but doesn't hit a man in stride much at all. I am actually surprised when he checks it to Gore in the flat and actually hits him on the run.

My definition of a "very good" QB is someone who throws TDs, first and foremost. Second, they must pass accurately to most, if not all, the throws on the Route Tree. Third, he must be able to make lemonade out of lemons when a play breaks down and have the courage to pull the trigger on throws that conventional football wisdom may cringe at. When you attach stats to my definition, Alex Smith is NOT "very good", or even "good", but rather "very average".

I like the guy and am impressed with his moxie, his handling of the fucked up situations this organization consistently put him through prior to Harbaugh. But if we are going to give Harbaugh kudos for the turnaround of this season, we must also admit that one of the things of genius he did was make this offense work by maximizing the strengths of his personnel while hiding the weaknesses, i.e. Smith's obvious limitations as a QB.

Don't include me in the "Smith is this or that" argument - I have no dog in that fight. Smith was good enough to not lose more than four games last year and that is good enough for me.

 

[Flyingiguana]

yet crabtree couldn't take advantage of the attention paid to vernon because he isn't starting material.

it's a two way street when you're talking about tight ends and recievers. if the receiver isn't good, the tight end will suffer. if the tight end is no good the reciever will suffer. not to say pettigrew isnt good, but being able to cover him with a single linebacker allowed us to slow down megatron. the giants being able to fully lockdown crabtree with webster allowed them to slow down vernon after he burned them.

 

[RedneckNiner]

Perfect scenario.. Broncos, Niners meet in the Superbowl and Patrick Willis Breaks Manning in Half.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

it's not so much being reliable in a sense of catching balls, but in a sense of getting a step on the defensive back. rogers is a decent corner and cruz can abuse him at times. u can close on crabtree if he gets a step u can't close on cruz.

I'm talking about situations when Eli's receivers didn't get a step though. I'm talking about situations when they only got half a step. Crabtree did that repeatedly in the game.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

with crabtree and morgan out there crabtree is gonna see better match ups. after morgan was gone for the year it became morgan and a bunch of back ups/practice squad guys. our passing game was outmatched.

we were conservative for the majority of the season. we constantly sat on leads with no sense of urgency. i would have liked to see us do the things we did against tampa where we took it to them in the 1st half. the combination of aggressive each drive on offense and punishing defense just made the bucs crawl into a fetal position as if it was a tampa team from the 80s.

I don't disagree that losing Morgan hurt our passing game. I disagree that we went conservative because we lost him. We were conservative with Morgan and we were conservative without him. Tampa Bay was more a product of our offense clicking against the worse pass rush in the league than a more aggressive approach. Rodgers' pick-six helped us to an 18-point first-half lead and it snowballed from there.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

Re-post.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

please pick a better example than crabtree. smith was middle of the road stats wise while crabtree's numbers put him at the bottom of the pack of starting wr's.

Smith was 19th in total yards. Crabtree was 34th. 34th of 64 (really more as several teams start three WRs) is a higher relative ranking than 19th of 32.

Smith was 27th in yards per game. Crabtree was 39th. Again, given that teams only start one QB, Crabtree's ranking is higher.

The only area where Smith ranks relatively higher than Crabtree is in TDs, and that is one of Smith's weaker areas.

I'm not saying Crabtree is very good, or even that he was much better than OK last year. But they were statistically comparable at their respective positions compared to all starters.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

the wr's were very bad. a reason why we're replacing crabtree with a guy who wasn't in the league and a 3rd stringer. can't have back ups at skill positions and expect miracles.

I didn't realize Crabtree had been replaced. Here I thought he was still on the team, and we were replacing Morgan and Edwards.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

I did provide my rationale for why the Giants were not markedly worse as you previously claimed. Perhaps I misunderstood your point. When you said the other offensive groups were markedly worse than ours, how were you quantifying and qualifying that remark relative to the 2011 season?

You provided your rationale, not evidence to support your rationale. I know you're still catching on, but those aren't the same thing.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

saying smith is a back up after the year he put up shows you're an idiot. seriously, go look at the stats.

The same could be said of Crabtree.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

there's a big difference between being a #1 and #2 wr. classic example is peerless price. excellent #2 but when he got his big contract and started seeing the better cover corners, he was hogwash.

an avg #2 makes for a horrible #1

Now you're changing your argument. You said:

please pick a better example than crabtree. smith was middle of the road stats wise while crabtree's numbers put him at the bottom of the pack of starting wr's.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

it's the same nitpicky crap ppl pull all the time. smith is a solid starter until we can find something better. a healthy manning would be great, but that isn't an issue now.

i know i will get kicked in the balls for saying this. but i wouldnt be surprised if smith puts up a better season than manning next year. the colts were going downhill before manning was hurt. if his arm is say 80% he might end up below his 2010 numbers. 90 passer rating and sub 7 ypa isn't what denver would be paying that money for.

Smith is a solid starter. He is not more - to date at least. And it is not entirely the fault of his supporting cast that he is not more.