POLL: Last throw by Kap to Crabtree

[Pattersonca65]

From reinstating banned posters to his work with He Who Shall Not Be Named, Sick has been an excellent mod so far, IMO.

I don't think Sickness is a mod.

 

[whysies]

I don't think Sickness is a mod.

Says he is at the bottom of the forum

 

[CalamityX11]

Thanks guys. Sickness interceded on my behalf. He gets the credit/blame, depending on your perspective. Good to be back.

bienvenidos!

 

[redseat]

bad throw imo and excellent defense by Sherman... The throw should have been to the corner of the endzone and not to his back shoulder...

What down was it? I can't remember? IF it was anything but 4th down then you have to throw the ball farther than it was.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

bad throw imo and excellent defense by Sherman... The throw should have been to the corner of the endzone and not to his back shoulder...

What down was it? I can't remember? IF it was anything but 4th down then you have to throw the ball farther than it was.

It was first down.

 

[rjshull]

Kap in his first and second seasons as the starter may be comparable to Smith in his seventh. I think it's pretty clear he's done more in terms of carrying the team, but at least there's an argument there. So how was Smith looking in his second year? Oh, that's right, he was god awful. If Smith could make the strides that he has, why do you assume that Kaepernick has peaked? It is very common for QBs to have a sophomore slump. Kaepernick had one. He's got some impressive strengths that Smith, for instance, could never match. He's a smart person and a hard worker. He hasn't learned from his mistakes as quickly as I would like, but again, let's see what he does coming off his second offseason as the starter.

Crimson, the problem with comparing year 2 to year 7 is the team and coaching. Smith has never had anything around him until Harbs came along, and what did he do once he was here? He took us to 13-3 and the NFCCG with the same team that went 6-10 in 2010. IF you take the horrible play of Williams away in the CG then Smith would have taken us to the SB.

I am not trying to say that Alex was the answer as he clearly was not, but Kap is not the answer either, he is a middle of the road QB with some wheels. Either way, with both Kap and Smith at the helm we ended up in the same position at the end of the year, losing our last game. Neither one has won us a SB nor will they moving forward, Kap just does not have that ability. We need to accept that and if all you care about is making the playoffs then yes we have our team but that is not enough for me. IF this team wins the SB, it will not be because of Kap, it will be on the back of Gore/Hyde and the D and we will win in despite of Kap.

The one thing that we need to remember is this was the end of his 3rd season, and he has not shown much growth over his 3 years. What Kap has shown is that he tries to be a run and gun QB when we are a west coast offense team, and the #1 thing a QB needs to do in a west coast offense is to be able to make quick reads, which includes pre-snap reads, this is Kap’s biggest weakness. Yes he has the wheels to make things interesting, but he cannot run forever, and sooner rather than later he will end up like RG3 and Vick.

 

[rjshull]

No, it's not. Flacco, Cutler, Romo, and Stafford all got money in that area. None are Super Star QBs. That is where the "good not great" QB market has gone recently. I don't disagree that it's absurd, but that's the market.

Yes, they are not Super stars, but they are ALL better than Kap. This is where the discussion lies. I do not see the desire in Kap's eyes or playing style to be anything other than a running QB, which is why I keep comparing him to Vick. Kap might have the ability to Run and Throw, but he does not have the ability to learn, he does not have the ability to read a D. In 3 years of being in the pro’s he has not learned the single most important thing for a QB, how to read the D. His first year should have been dedicated to learning that, his second he was forced into a starting role when Smith went down and he showed some flashes of stardom, this past year he showed me no growth. He did not learn how to read the defense, and he has not grown as a passer.

If he had, then our Passing numbers would have been better, he led us to 26th in passing yards, (come on even Cleveland with their problems had more passing yards then we did), 9th in yards per attempt, 28th in TD’s, 10th in INT’s. In 2012 we were 23rd in yards, 1st yards per attempt, 16th in TD’s, and 30th in INT’s. So in a full year of Kap we dropped 3 spots in passing yards, 8 pots in yards per attempt, 12 spots for TD’s, and we increased our INT’s by 20 spots. Yep, Kap is doing a fine job and we should give him $18-$20MM per year.

 

[rjshull]

Are you serious? On 49 passes, Manning had 5.71 YPA. He threw two INTs - including a pick-six - and lost a fumble. His only TD came with the team trailing by 36. He had an absolutely atrocious game. Now, I will agree that he was under quite a bit of pressure, but even when he was not pressured, and when he had open receivers, he was throwing wounded ducks all over the field. He completely collapsed.

Kaepernick produced 283 yards to Manning's 279, and he just did it on 35 touches instead of Manning's 50. He led his team to almost twice the points Manning did (granted the first three points didn't really involve him at all), despite neither team having any run game - clearly a much greater hindrance to the Niners' usual offense. He was poised and effective in the first half, allowing his team to take an unexpected 10-3 lead into halftime. As acknowledged, he did fall apart a little bit in the second half, but he still mounted a comeback and gave his team a chance. Hell, his first half alone was better than anything Manning did in the Super Bowl.

So, we have gone from who the better passer is to who is the more electrifying athlete. Got it.

In one game Manning had 280 passing yards, Kap had 455 yards over three games, or 151 yards per game. Manning struggles had everything to do with the tenacious Defense that is Seattle, even against that D Manning was only 62 yards his average per game for the year. And Seattle has a strong argument for the best D in history, if not the best in the past 20 years. Kap went 1-2 against Seattle this year, he almost went 0-3.

 

[CalamityX11]

bad throw imo and excellent defense by Sherman... The throw should have been to the corner of the endzone and not to his back shoulder...

What down was it? I can't remember? IF it was anything but 4th down then you have to throw the ball farther than it was.

first down, somewhere in the late teens IIRC of seconds left with TWO TOs to spare.....

 

[yossarian]

first down, somewhere in the late teens IIRC of seconds left with TWO TOs to spare.....

Yeah, that's what gets me, and in looking at Prisco's all 22 film clips it looks like one of the receivers on the other side of the field was open, not for a td, but they could have gotten a completion then either run out of bounds or called a TO immediately. It might have been an ok call on 4th down, or with little time left on the clock, but under the circumstances it was not the right call. My hope is that this year he learns to see other receivers more. He should have a drill where he has a primary receiver on a play and he can't throw it to him, he has to look elsewhere and throw it. Something like that.

 

[supreme_clientele81]

Yeah, that's what gets me, and in looking at Prisco's all 22 film clips it looks like one of the receivers on the other side of the field was open, not for a td, but they could have gotten a completion then either run out of bounds or called a TO immediately. It might have been an ok call on 4th down, or with little time left on the clock, but under the circumstances it was not the right call. My hope is that this year he learns to see other receivers more. He should have a drill where he has a primary receiver on a play and he can't throw it to him, he has to look elsewhere and throw it. Something like that.

Man that really should be a drill the coaches implement for Kap in OTAs/TC

 

[Uhsplit]

Given some of the discussion about Kap, I wonder how people would view Wilson if he had lost the Niners' game. A lot of people - <cough> the entire Seattle metro area <cough> - seem to think Wilson has arrived as an elite QB. I don't see him as being much further along than Kap, if at all.

Between the Saints regular season win and the Super Bowl, he was frankly bad. Five passing TDs and four INTs in six games. Three fumbles (granted only one lost). Twenty-one sacks. An average of 161 passing yards and 19 rushing yards a game. His best game passing yardage-wise was his 215 yards against the Niners in the NFCCG - and I think anyone who watched that game can attest that even those yardage numbers were probably inflated a bit as his two biggest passes came on absolutely bone-headed defensive plays. Lucky for him that his D never allowed more than 19 points (15.4 average) in that span.

Wilson ends the year with a win in which he played very well - though his defense was absolutely dominant from the first play - and everyone forgets his struggles to end last season. Now, just like Kap, there's every reason to believe he will continue to improve. And at least in terms of reading the field, I think he's got a leg up on Kap already. But I'm not sold he's the better long-term QB. I'm interested to see how both these guys look in the months and years ahead.

Crimson, you are a solid poster, but your slant on RW's stats are a bit skewed. I have his stats in that same timespan as 5TD's and 3 Ints. Those aren't all world #'s, but let's add the Saints game and the Superbowl in there and now we have 10TD's and 3 Ints adding in the 2 bookend games. In the playoffs he was 3TDs, 0 Ints with a 101.6 QB rating.
He now looks a little more competent.

 

[whysies]

Crimson, you are a solid poster, but your slant on RW's stats are a bit skewed. I have his stats in that same timespan as 5TD's and 3 Ints. Those aren't all world #'s, but let's add the Saints game and the Superbowl in there and now we have 10TD's and 3 Ints adding in the 2 bookend games. In the playoffs he was 3TDs, 0 Ints with a 101.6 QB rating.
He now looks a little more competent.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

Crimson, the problem with comparing year 2 to year 7 is the team and coaching. Smith has never had anything around him until Harbs came along, and what did he do once he was here? He took us to 13-3 and the NFCCG with the same team that went 6-10 in 2010. IF you take the horrible play of Williams away in the CG then Smith would have taken us to the SB.

I am not trying to say that Alex was the answer as he clearly was not, but Kap is not the answer either, he is a middle of the road QB with some wheels. Either way, with both Kap and Smith at the helm we ended up in the same position at the end of the year, losing our last game. Neither one has won us a SB nor will they moving forward, Kap just does not have that ability. We need to accept that and if all you care about is making the playoffs then yes we have our team but that is not enough for me. IF this team wins the SB, it will not be because of Kap, it will be on the back of Gore/Hyde and the D and we will win in despite of Kap.

The one thing that we need to remember is this was the end of his 3rd season, and he has not shown much growth over his 3 years. What Kap has shown is that he tries to be a run and gun QB when we are a west coast offense team, and the #1 thing a QB needs to do in a west coast offense is to be able to make quick reads, which includes pre-snap reads, this is Kap’s biggest weakness. Yes he has the wheels to make things interesting, but he cannot run forever, and sooner rather than later he will end up like RG3 and Vick.

Smith had Norv Turner in his second year. Turner has a very successful career of developing QBs. I'm not going to argue that Smith had the same advantages Kap did in his second year as the starter, but he had a solid team, a great run game, and a good offensive coaching staff, and the results were also drastically different. Smith had a 74 passer rating, a completion percentage of 58.1, and threw the same number of INTs as he did TDs. He also fumbled six times. He went 7-9.

I don't have time to continue this right now. I will return to it later this afternoon.

 

[yossarian]

Steve Young: Colin Kaepernick should run less, learn to make reads | ProFootballTalk

 

[-AC-]

Yes, they are not Super stars, but they are ALL better than Kap. This is where the discussion lies. I do not see the desire in Kap's eyes or playing style to be anything other than a running QB, which is why I keep comparing him to Vick. Kap might have the ability to Run and Throw, but he does not have the ability to learn, he does not have the ability to read a D. In 3 years of being in the pro’s he has not learned the single most important thing for a QB, how to read the D. His first year should have been dedicated to learning that, his second he was forced into a starting role when Smith went down and he showed some flashes of stardom, this past year he showed me no growth. He did not learn how to read the defense, and he has not grown as a passer.

If he had, then our Passing numbers would have been better, he led us to 26th in passing yards, (come on even Cleveland with their problems had more passing yards then we did), 9th in yards per attempt, 28th in TD’s, 10th in INT’s. In 2012 we were 23rd in yards, 1st yards per attempt, 16th in TD’s, and 30th in INT’s. So in a full year of Kap we dropped 3 spots in passing yards, 8 pots in yards per attempt, 12 spots for TD’s, and we increased our INT’s by 20 spots. Yep, Kap is doing a fine job and we should give him $18-$20MM per year.

I'm just curious as to why you think they are better?

Stafford has two victories in his career verses winning teams (including one that came this last Thanksgiving against the Packers without Aaron Rodgers) despite throwing to the best WR in the game. He is now 2-27 verses winning teams...

Cutler since joining the Bears has had a very good defense to fall back on as well as one of the better sets of WR's in the league, and yet he has done nothing worth noting...

Romo is also throwing to one of the best WR's. I can give him a pass this last season because the Cowboy defense was so terrible. But it has not always been that way, and yet the results always seem to end the same way for the Romo lead Cowboys...

Flacco I'm not even sure what to make of. He obviously fell back to earth this past season. Will the real Joe Flacco please stand up?

As for the rest of your post, you do realize the 49ers are a run first team, right? Comparing them to teams like Cleveland makes absolutely no sense when you take into considerations pass attempts.

If you want to get a better indication of what a better balanced 49er offense can look like (including Kap's passing stats) check out the last five games...

The last 5 games of the regular season with Crabtree back in the line-up, Kaepernick's stats-

()Season totals
QB Rating- 101.52 (91.6)
TD/Int- 7-1 (21-8)
Yards- 1160 (3197)
YPG- 232 (199.8)
YPA- 8.6 (7.7)
Comp%- 61.76 (58.4)
Rush Yards- 169 (524)
Rush TD- 1 (4)
Fumble/Lost 0-0 (6-4)
W-L 5-0 (12-4)

 

[Crimsoncrew]

Crimson, the problem with comparing year 2 to year 7 is the team and coaching. Smith has never had anything around him until Harbs came along, and what did he do once he was here? He took us to 13-3 and the NFCCG with the same team that went 6-10 in 2010. IF you take the horrible play of Williams away in the CG then Smith would have taken us to the SB.

I am not trying to say that Alex was the answer as he clearly was not, but Kap is not the answer either, he is a middle of the road QB with some wheels. Either way, with both Kap and Smith at the helm we ended up in the same position at the end of the year, losing our last game. Neither one has won us a SB nor will they moving forward, Kap just does not have that ability. We need to accept that and if all you care about is making the playoffs then yes we have our team but that is not enough for me. IF this team wins the SB, it will not be because of Kap, it will be on the back of Gore/Hyde and the D and we will win in despite of Kap.

The one thing that we need to remember is this was the end of his 3rd season, and he has not shown much growth over his 3 years. What Kap has shown is that he tries to be a run and gun QB when we are a west coast offense team, and the #1 thing a QB needs to do in a west coast offense is to be able to make quick reads, which includes pre-snap reads, this is Kap’s biggest weakness. Yes he has the wheels to make things interesting, but he cannot run forever, and sooner rather than later he will end up like RG3 and Vick.

Ok, back to this. We can't possibly say how much growth Kap showed between his rookie year and his second year because he didn't play. He showed TREMENDOUS growth between his preseason action in 2012 and his regular season action in 2012, though. I think Kap is hurt somewhat because of just how good he was in 2012. In his first starting action, he posted a passer rating of 98.2 and went 5-2 in the regular season before going 2-1 in the playoffs and taking the team to the super bowl. In the playoffs, he never had a rating below 91, and led his team to 28+ points in every game.

Kaepernick regressed as a passer this year. He was likely asked to do more, and teams had a better read on him. This is very typical. Even regressing, he is still further ahead as a passer than most guys with fewer than 32 starts. Again, Tom Brady is a good example. The guy didn't have a passer rating in the 90s until his fifth season. Drew Brees had a 67.5 rating in his second year as a starter - a clear regression from his first year as the starter. In Manning's fourth and fifth seasons, he fell short of a 90 passer rating. QBs don't just become elite. They have to learn their trade.

Kap is already far ahead of where most QBs are three/two years into their careers (years vs. as a starter). If he shows no more improvement, then he is a middle-of-the-road QB who is probably worth $14 million a year in the current market - again, take a look at the list of QBs; it starts looking very grim after about 22 guys. If he does show improvement, though, he could be a very good QB. Again, it would be the height of insanity to simply give up on him right now.

Though what would you prefer us to do at QB?

 

[Crimsoncrew]

Crimson, you are a solid poster, but your slant on RW's stats are a bit skewed. I have his stats in that same timespan as 5TD's and 3 Ints. Those aren't all world #'s, but let's add the Saints game and the Superbowl in there and now we have 10TD's and 3 Ints adding in the 2 bookend games. In the playoffs he was 3TDs, 0 Ints with a 101.6 QB rating.
He now looks a little more competent.

You're right, it was 5 and 3 instead of 5 and 4. I don't see that that changes my conclusion much. His rating in the playoffs was good. His actual play in the playoffs? Until the super bowl, it was mediocre at best. He did nothing to put the Saints game away, allowing them to stick around far longer than they should have - admittedly some of that was playcalling and the conditions were rough. As far as the Niner game, the deep ball to Baldwin in the Niner game should never have happened. I hate revisionist history as much as anyone I know, and Wilson deserves credit for keeping the play alive as long as he did, but Baldwin was blanketed by our safeties, who then inexplicably let him get behind both of them. And the one really good throw he made was on a 4th down with an incredibly stupid offsides penalty (I was literally saying "don't jump offsides" right before Aldon did so) where he could just wing it and not worry about the tight coverage of the defender. Those two plays accounted for 86 of his 215 yards (a whopping 40%) and his lone TD in the game, and I chalk them up far more to appallingly bad defense than Wilson.

Look, I'm not saying those games are indicative of Wilson's ability or potential. I'm simply pointing out that perceptions hinge way too much on what we saw most recently. When we last saw Colin Kaepernick, he was throwing a terrible, soul-killing INT against the Hawks just when it seemed we might pull off a huge upset. As a result, many people latch onto the fact that he can't read the field and showed no growth this past season. Conversely, we saw Russell Wilson looking coolly efficient as he steered a juggernaut to victory in the SB. Despite it being a legitimate debate all season long as to which was better, most people would take it as a given now that Wilson is better than Kap. I don't think you could find a Seattle fan who would even entertain the notion that Kap might be the better player now or in the longterm. I think it's still very much open to discussion.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

Yes, they are not Super stars, but they are ALL better than Kap. This is where the discussion lies. I do not see the desire in Kap's eyes or playing style to be anything other than a running QB, which is why I keep comparing him to Vick. Kap might have the ability to Run and Throw, but he does not have the ability to learn, he does not have the ability to read a D. In 3 years of being in the pro’s he has not learned the single most important thing for a QB, how to read the D. His first year should have been dedicated to learning that, his second he was forced into a starting role when Smith went down and he showed some flashes of stardom, this past year he showed me no growth. He did not learn how to read the defense, and he has not grown as a passer.

If he had, then our Passing numbers would have been better, he led us to 26th in passing yards, (come on even Cleveland with their problems had more passing yards then we did), 9th in yards per attempt, 28th in TD’s, 10th in INT’s. In 2012 we were 23rd in yards, 1st yards per attempt, 16th in TD’s, and 30th in INT’s. So in a full year of Kap we dropped 3 spots in passing yards, 8 pots in yards per attempt, 12 spots for TD’s, and we increased our INT’s by 20 spots. Yep, Kap is doing a fine job and we should give him $18-$20MM per year.

Romo, Stafford, Cutler, and Flacco are better QBs than Kaepernick? Period, end of story? Not sure I can agree with that. Kap has his flaws, to be sure, but he's also been dynamic at times in the playoffs, which is more than any of those guys other than Flacco can say. He probably has the best supporting cast, but you want it both ways. You talk about his coaching staff and strong supporting cast like they're benefits, then knock him for his overall numbers. Well, it's the coaching staff that is making the team a run-first operation. It's the strong supporting cast that allows us to run the ball effectively. If we called more pass plays, Kap would have better numbers. When we have asked him to come through throwing the ball, by and large he has done so.

Oh, and as far as your numbers, the Niners were tied with KC as the best team in the league for INTs thrown this past year. No idea where your 10th is coming from. For that matter, we were 23rd in TDs. Where are you getting your numbers? The TD differential was 21 vs. 23. That's negligible. The INT numbers were identical. It's not like he suffered a huge regression. He was slightly worse as he was asked to do more. Again, that's pretty common.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

So, we have gone from who the better passer is to who is the more electrifying athlete. Got it.

In one game Manning had 280 passing yards, Kap had 455 yards over three games, or 151 yards per game. Manning struggles had everything to do with the tenacious Defense that is Seattle, even against that D Manning was only 62 yards his average per game for the year. And Seattle has a strong argument for the best D in history, if not the best in the past 20 years. Kap went 1-2 against Seattle this year, he almost went 0-3.

No, we've gone from "who had a better playoff game against the Seahawks" to...well, that's still where I am. I have no idea where you are. Apparently you now want to consider Kap's three games against Manning's one. Please try to pay closer attention to the actual discussion.

It's interesting to hear that Manning struggled due to Seattle's tenacious D, though. I was under the impression that Kap was playing that same D. In the noisiest stadium in the league. But Manning sure did throw for a respectable amount of yards in moving up and down the field futilely in the second half. And passing yards really are the only important statistic when considering a QB's play. Heck, all those passing yards almost undid the harm Manning did with that atrocious pick-six in the first half.

And you're right, Kap did almost go 0-3. He almost went 2-1, too. Is there something less than "0"? If so, Manning deserves it for his super bowl performance. I'd imagine he agrees.