FanPost

Agent Smith: The Future or The Schmuture?

There has been scattered discussion about this in various threads recently, and I think for the first time around the site we're starting to see a fair amount of opposing or varying positions on the "Smith" question. Because of this, and the mini-pseudo-panic caused by his injury, it seems like we finally have a good time to really get a good centralized discussion on the topic.

There are some obvious anti-Smithites out there (DraftQBin2008 comes to mind), and some outspoken Smith-boosters (Fooch, for instance).

One thing I think this could turn into is an argument about whether or not Smith is to blame for what's going on this year, and I'd rather that it not turn that way. Rather, I'd prefer if the discussion was more tailored toward why we do or do not think that Alex Smith is the QB of the future (which I'll define pretty unquivocably later).

An example of the kind of stuff I've been seeing that seems constructive to this conversation are:

If you just look at the black and white performance of Alex Smith in his not-quite-as-young-as-it-used-to-be career, there really isn't much to smile about. He had a horrific rookie year. He had a slightly-better-than-crappy sophomore season that people liked to refer to as "major improvement!" and he was (save one drive) churning out a painfully awful showing in what was supposed to be the year that we could finally judge him. If I'm wrong, you can feel free to throw tomatoes at me down the road, but I think it's pretty safe to say that Alex Smith is not the answer that the 49ers franchise was searching for. He's probably not even the answer to the Cleveland Browns backup role in a couple years.... The guy seems to never want to throw the ball down the field unless a guy is wide the f open (and then he usually overthrows him by 4-9 yards). - shleckothegecko

With this kind of well reasoned rebuttal

Yes, he thinks he feels more pressure than he is actually under sometimes and begins to react to it too soon.  Yes, he could try to make quicker decisions.  But honestly, the kid hardly has made any mistakes that has drastically hurt this team.... If the WRs have held onto at least 66% of their drops, Smith's completion percentage would be close to 60% rather than 50%. - sfgfan

Yes, I am taking both of those quotes out of context, but I think you can see what I'm getting at. They both deal with things that Smith has shown that either dicouarage or encourage an individual's faith that Alex is the guy of the future.

Clearly, I don't want to limit discussion to what we see on the field, so feel free to write about any aspect of the guy's character or game. I also think this would be an AWESOME time for you footballoutsiders advanced stat geeks to really bust it out the balls, because I don't think advanced stats have really gotten a lot of play in this discussion since the infamous "Battle of Jason Campbell," and I imagine they'd be pretty useful in this kind of evaluation/debate.

For convenience's sake, I'm going to define "QB of the future" as "Still starting for us in five years." I think that's perfectly fair.

Bottom line, though. Comment starter: Do you believe that Alex Smith will be the quarterback of this team in five years? Why, or why not.

Poll: Future = Starting in Five, Schmuture = Schmarting in Schmive. You get the idea.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Niners Nation's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of Niners Nation's writers or editors.