Smith gets offseason to work on mechanics

[MHSL82]

Smith's Work Wasn't All Mechanical

I outlined the quotes I saw, because sometimes, those are all I read. I'm guessing some people are a bit like me and this would make it easier for them.

One more note on Alex Smith’s visit with former major league pitching coach Tom House: Their work together focused on shoulder strengthening and throwing mechanics, but it also touched on the mental aspect of Smith’s job.

House, who has a doctorate in sports psychology, encourages each athlete who visits him to take the Sports Total Assessment Report (STAR), which identifies behavior traits and predicts future behavior and performance. In a phone interview last week, House said Smith took the test during his visit in late March.

It’s not known what impact, if any, the test and a follow-up consultation with House had on Smith.

But it’s interesting to note that Saints quarterback Drew Brees, who recommended the pitching coach to Smith, credits his meeting with House after the 2003 season for transforming his previous nice-guy style of leadership.

Here’s an excerpt from this 2010 article in Sports Illustrated on the initial meeting between House and the then-struggling Brees, who had thrown 29 touchdowns and 31 interceptions in his first three NFL seasons:

House helped Brees minimally with throwing mechanics and significantly with the underpinnings of leadership. “Drew wants to please people,” says House. “He cares too much. He needed to learn that you can’t be everything to all people.” What Brees took from the sessions was this: “I was too nice a guy, as a leader. I had this tendency that if people were doing things wrong, I would try to make up for it instead of calling them out. And that will burn you out."

Does that sound like any nice-guy quarterback you know?

By his own admission, Smith has been a people pleaser during his career. In this interview with Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News last season, he said he’s worried less about what others think in recent years.

“When I was young, I just tried to please everybody,” Smith said. “Especially being the first pick, I was, ‘Man, I’m going to prove it to everybody.’ And not just you, the media, and the fans, but my teammates, coaches… and I’m going to do it on every single play. And with every action. Then as you get older, it’s not like it went away after my first year. It was a while.”

Smith acknowledged Jim Harbaugh’s personality has also influenced him. Harbaugh, you might have noticed, isn’t overly concerned about outsiders’ perception of him (see Carroll, Pete; Schwartz, Jim).

“I saw that and I appreciated that,” Smith said of Harbaugh. “Just a guy who’s not really concerned with what people think about him at all. He’s going to live his life and he’s not going to dwell on, ‘Oh, what do they think about that? What is this person thinking? Should I have done something different?’”

There were a few signs last year that Smith had become a slightly edgier leader. Left tackle Joe Staley admitted he was surprised when Smith scolded him for arguing an official’s call during a win against the Steelers. Smith, who was trying to get his teammates back in the huddle, told his buddy: “Staley, shut the f-up and get over here!’”

And there were times when Smith bristled when asked about his perceived role as a “game manager.” After a regular-season win over the Giants, he fired back at New York defensive end Justin Tuck, who had offered a less-than-flattering pregame assessment of Smith: “I managed myself into a victory,” Smith said, unsmiling as he got the last word. “That’s all I could care about.”

Before the divisional-playoff win against the Saints, he ditched his manners when asked if he could throw for as many yards as Brees.

“I have no idea,” Smith said, visibly annoyed. “I don’t care. I really don’t care. I’m looking to outscore him. He can throw for however many yards he wants.”

Smith, obviously, became a more assertive leader before this offseason. But whatever mental insights he might have gained from House presumably can’t hurt.

It’s appeared to work out fairly well for that guy he outscored in the playoffs.

 

[Jikkle]

Thanks Ray.

Here it is:

Looks good so far but hopefully he can ingrain it into muscle memory because it's easy to do when you don't have anything to think about besides just throwing the ball.

 

[deep9er]

Looks good so far but hopefully he can ingrain it into muscle memory because it's easy to do when you don't have anything to think about besides just throwing the ball.

true, but main thing is he's making an earnest effort now, this is the time to do it.

when TC arrives (now called Phases?) he'll move on to developing chemistry with all these new receivers.

 

[MHSL82]

when u look like steve blake's twin brother, there isn't much that can be done....

[MEDIA=twitter]201514418348113922[/MEDIA]

 

[MHSL82]

Bay Area Sports Guy – Alex Smith’s new mechanics imitate Joe Montana’s ‘Art and Magic’

Pretty good read if you skip or ignore the first few paragraphs (for me anyway). It's not a terrrrrible introduction, it's just the later paragraphs have more detail than the first. The first are a bit repetitive of what we've read here. I've copy and pasted the later part here (full article and pictures are in the above link):

According to CSNBayArea.com’s Matt Maoicco, House’s tutelage focused on one area: Smith’s lower body. Specifically, Smith would work to improve his drop-back footwork and his knee flex. By improving both, Smith stands to significantly improve his weaknesses, including his tendency to take sacks, throw high on crossing and out routes, and overthrow deep balls.

The Drop

Smith told CSNBayArea.com, “(I was) working on my drops, being more efficient with my movement.”

Sources elaborated on Smith’s inefficiencies to Maiocco, intimating that “When Smith takes a straight drop-back, he has a tendency to veer off the center line and his right hip flies open as he sets.”

The source continued, “Without perfect balance, the accuracy and velocity of Smith’s throws are impacted — especially on throws to his left.”

Efficiency of feet and alignment of hips are areas stressed in most books written on the subject, including The Art and Magic of Quarterbacking by Joe Montana, The Art of Quarterbacking by Ken Anderson and Complete Quarterbacking by Don Read.

In fact, Smith’s uncoordinated hips might explain his tendency to miss targets, at least if we are to believe Montana, who believes “Opening your hips too soon will cause overthrows.”

Smith’s poor foot coordination creates problems with accuracy and velocity with a quarterback’s footwork. According to Read, “Accuracy and velocity are affected positively or negatively by the coordination of a quarterback’s feet and arm.”

Anderson takes it a step further, arguing “foot speed is the key (to quarterbacking).” In Anderson’s opinion, poor foot speed results in “lazy” or “slow” drop backs, which results in sacks—maybe even as many as 44 of them.

“(He) only has a few seconds in which to pass,” Anderson writes, “so the quicker (he) gets into position to throw, the more he will be able to see and the sooner he can take advantage of the defense.”

Smith certainly didn’t take advantage of many defenses. Nor did he do his offensive line any favors. As Matt Maiocco points out, “(Smith) did not ‘throw open receivers’ with regularity. And he often held the ball too long and took unnecessary sacks.” Both can be seen as symptoms of poor footwork. If his drop his head, then he won’t be able to read the movement of the defense, which means he’ll hang on the ball and take unnecessary sacks.

Leg Lock

Team sources also told Maiocco that Smith is worked on correcting the bend, or lack thereof, in his left knee.

“Smith locks his front leg (left leg) as he strides during his throwing motion,” Maiocco reports. “(Ron) Jaworski has said repeatedly that without a flexed knee and cushion, Smith’s accuracy and velocity suffers.”

Again, Smith’s leg issues lead to problems with arm strength and accuracy. Whereas his drops were causing overthrows, his stiff leg were causing underthrows. Quite the paradox, I know.

“You don’t want to land on a stiff front knee,” Montana writes. “This keeps your weight from shifting through your delivery. It will cause you to throw short, while also putting enormous strain on your arm.”

Don Read confirms this, believing a flexed front leg is especially important for quarterbacks who lack arm strength — which many believe is problem Smith possesses. According to Read, if the quarterback is to add momentum to the throw, “he must keep his body low in the beginning, with his knees bent, well until push off from the back leg begins.”

Ultimately, Smith already stood to make gainful strides this season without these mechanical tweaks. The reasons for this abound. The weapons added and the offensive system point to Smith’s 2012 improvement. With these improvements, it is not unfair to suggest that many of Smith’s weaknesses could be remedied to certain degree. So if you want to call Smith anything, call him much improved.

 

[mem49er]

[MEDIA=twitter]201514418348113922[/MEDIA]

Lol, Davis's tweets are growing on me.

 

[MHSL82]

Catchable balls are rated. So are bad passes. Smith is always par on the 'bad pass' percentage.

Last year Smith lead the NFL in two pass percentage stats: Passes dropped by WRs (catchable balls) and passes thrown away to avoid sacks (where there was no open receiver). If these are added back to his his completion percentage, as ProFootballFocus does to derrive an 'accuracy stat' Smith was #3 in the NFL in accuracy last year:

Passes thrown away when there is an open receiver are 'bad throws.' Uncatchable balls are 'bad throws.'

People do this for a living whether it's STATS, Inc or ProFootball Focus or whomever is gathering, compiling and selling the stats. They don't like Smith. They don't hate Smith. They just report the facts as they record them because they have NO FAN BIAS.

(I took this from the comment section of the Crabtree "best hands" article.) I'm not claiming that Alex is really number 3 in accuracy, but this is a good sign because if Crabtree and Moss are sure-hands this year and Smith develops his mechanics and confidence to not throw the ball away, then we might see what Harbaugh says is dramatic improvement. Of course, he may revert back and have a worse year, just trying to be optimistic.

 

[spacedoodoopistol]

The one thing I can add about this is something I remember from a piece about Todd Marinovich, who was a QB tutor during and after his career. The guy has a lot of crazy issues, but he is technically excellent and has good knowledge and ability to teach mechanics. One of the things he had his students do was practice their new throwing motion, without the ball, something like 1000 times every night. Whether or not House would do something like that, it does make some sense. Like Jikkle says, its about retraining your muscle memory and it takes a lot of really fundamental practice and you have to probably put in tons of time.

 

[MHSL82]

Tebow is now getting in on the act.

Tebow's now seeing Tom House to work on his mechanics. Seems a bit late in the off-season, but since he's not the slated starter, I suppose the lateness couldn't hurt, especially when Tebow's current mechanics would hinder more than him working on different mechanics would.

 

[BINGO]

Tebow and the jets are going to pound teams next year. Mark my words. Especially in the goaline short yardage situations. If you think we struggled last year in short yardage situations, you guys should watch the jets. I think they have a cure in Tebow to resolve that particular problem. Mark can move the chains as the primary QB / starter but Tebow will help in so many ways for that offense.