A Few MORE Key Things That Will Be Overlooked By Most

Alex Smith had a great game. I think you’ll be seeing him a little bit longer, like 3 years longer after this season is done.

As far as Kapernick, the jury is still out. If the Niners had to rely on him we wouldn’t have the success we’re enjoying now. Just a fact…

We want to do that we just can’t until we can be confident in our pass protection. We’ve taken some risks to make some big plays but our intermediate passing game sets Alex up as a pinata.

Maybe his best as a Niner. His game would look even better if Vernon Davis caught that ball, as well. Can’t really see much room for improvement aside from nitpicking (i.e. WHY DIDN’T HE GO 55-55 with 55 TOUCHDOWNS FOR 5445 YARDS!). Also, I hate to say it, but Honey Badger is taken by Tyrann Mathieu of LSU.

But, honestly, every quarterback in the league has overthrown wide open receivers. It happens for different reasons, and it’s not always the quarterback’s fault.

People expect him to be 20 of 20 for 400 yards. I’m not saying there isn’t room for improvement, I’m just sayin’ take a long, hard look at most quarterbacks in the league and you’ll see they don’t hit every deep ball they throw. They miss one, miss two, but hit the third and no one remembers the misses.

Brady misses throws. Even Roethlisberger. Romo does. Eli does. Flacco. Brees. Name quarterbacks for playoff calibre teams – they all miss throws. The only one who is absolutely on fire right now is Rodgers, but he’s having a crazy year.

Some of you wanna jump on Smith for every bad throw, whether its his fault or not. It’s been how many years? And nothing’s changed. Haters wanna hate, I guess. The fact is Alex played great today. And don’t give me this “against the Rams” nonsense. The Rams played lights out and beat the Saints. We’ve played smart, but ultimately conservative, football all year long. It’s helped us avoid turnovers and win close games, but it arguably cost us against Dallas and Baltimore; and it’s of course done nothing to pad Alex’s stat line.

None of this is Alex’s fault. He had a great game today. Two deep touchdown throws. Should have been three. No interceptions. And he was taking sacks that, again, did not appear to be his fault.

Some of you act like you’re dating a girl who’s cheated on you 30 times in the past and you just won’t trust her no matter what she does. Well, Alex Smith rarely cheated; most the time he was raped against his will. Bad coaching; bad play-calling; constant third-and-longs; nothing to work with. He finally has a good coach and he’s growing into it and playing the best ball of his career.

We’re 10 – 2, have the second best record in the NFL, and are looking towards a first round bye in the playoffs. Can’t you all just accept that Alex is actually playing good football?

You were critical of Smith, who in my mind had a great game even if he did overthrow Ginn a couple of times, but you praised Kaepernick who finished 0 for 2 and the only two three-and-out drives the offense had all game were with Kaepernick. One of his throws was on target to Peele and he just dropped it, but Smith had a perfect TD pass to Davis that also got dropped. Kaepernick’s other throw was over Walker’s head. I get the feeling you’re projecting a little like someone who’s been in a bad marriage. You only see the bad things your spouse does while only seeing the good things from the secretary. Once you marry the secretary you realize she wasn’t as perfect as you thought.

1. Agree about the red zone playcalling. It’s really, really bad. Putting everyone in the box and forcing it down people’s throat isn’t working, even against the worst of teams. The gimick plays are failing. I cannot stress enough how much we need to get this fixed before the playoffs.

2. Alex seems to be at his worst dumping the ball to RBs or throwing deep to the outside. Alex is not the primary issue in the red zone, since he isn’t getting enough opportunites due to playcalling. Alex must be confident in the red zone by season end. That said, his completion % is pretty good considering all the dropped balls. He’s not going to be a top tier QB, but fixing the red zone play calling should make our O good enough under Alex to challenge GB, considering how good our D is.

3. Start Kyle Williams..’nuff said…

The sky is falling and chicken little is blah, blah, blah…
F Train no disrespect to your opinion, but please think about this. Alex failed to connect on 6 passes the entire afternoon. How is this poor performance? I just don’t know how anybody sees the performance that Alex Smith put together and says that it is “HORRIBLE”. I call this the Deion Sanders effect, according to ‘Prime Time’ Alex has not shown that he can throw the ball consistantly. I beg to differ. Alex HAS shown that he can throw the ball consistantly, the receivers have shown that they cannot catch consistantly. I have consistantly seen receivers that have been thrown to accurately drop the ball, then everybody wants to blame Alex. I just don’t see it. Granted, he’s not the most accurate passer we have ever seen, but he’s really not as bad as he gets credit for. There are two people necessary to complete a pass, and it’s not ALWAYS the QB fault.
Understood that the red zone plays were…let’s just say not up to par. I don’t know why a lot of those plays were even in the playbook, much less used for game day. And yes, I do beleive that we can be critical of the team. I also agree that we ‘play down" to the competition, while we play up to the better teams, don’t know why or how, but we are winning and doing it solidly.
Kyle Williams played out of his mind yesterday. Talk about beating the breaks off the Rams’ CB, DE, LB and whatever else they tried to cover him with lol. Dude was absolutely showcasing his work.

Vernon Davis dropped a TD…….from Smith.

This Smith’s first year in this new offense. I think he just gets better every week. The Ravens game was more of an offensive line problem….not Smith.

I don’t even know what to say about those throws to Ginn…like 20 feet over his head!

I encourage you to watch the replays of those throws, and pay attention to what’s happening in the pocket as Alex throws the ball.

In the second of the overthrows to Ginn, Smith is getting hit from behind as he throws. It looks like his back leg is getting taken out as he begins his motion. Nobody can throw an accurate ball in that circumstance.

ItBurnzwhenIP said that on the prior throw, Smith had to get rid of the ball faster than he would have liked because the pocket broke down. I didn’t watch that play again to confirm this, but have no reason to doubt them (that play happened during the worst streak of our o-line play all day).

“You take a quick look at what the defense gives you, decide to kill or go with the play, and THEN YOU SNAP THE BALL! You don’t hesitate, you don’t change your mind and kill the play, you just live with your decision and snap the ball.”

The problem is that when a play is blown up, the result can be much worse than a five yard loss, and you still get the down.

Busted plays produce a lot of turnovers and plays for losses. If Alex sees that his play won’t work, and runs it anyway … and it’s a run stuffed for a two-yard loss, that is worse than a delay of game penalty. If a player doesn’t get the correct play call, and commits, say, an illegal man downfield penalty (pretty much guaranteed if you are audibling a run play into a pass play and somebody doesn’t get the call) that’s a ten yard penalty – worse than a delay of game penalty.

And that says nothing of stuff like interceptions which happen when a receiver runs a route other than what the QB expects, or fumbles because the QB turns to hand the ball to a RB who isn’t expecting it. Miscommunication is a huge cause of turnovers.

Yes, absolutely, the team needs to tighten up their communication to reduce these penalties. However, saying “just snap the ball” is a mistake. A five yard penalty is not a very big deal. Even if one of the bad outcomes I discuss in this post don’t happen every play, you would gladly trade, say, three or four delay of games for a turnover, wouldn’t you?

Alex has played a great season so far. He does miss some balls, but at least he isn’t trying to fit the ball into double coverage anymore. If he doesn’t have a man downfield he either runs or he checks down or he throws the ball away. He didn’t do it against the Ravens because frankly the Ravens didn’t give him the opportunity just like a good defense should. When he does make throws they are on target, theyre thrown hard, and they hit the receiver in stride. All Crabs had to do to catch that bomb yesterday was get underneath it and put his hands out, and the ball just dropped nice and neat into his hands. THAT’s great football.

Can you just ride the W train for a little bit and enjoy it? Smith had a superb game. Greg Roman has truly been a 180 from he who shall not be named. It’s always nice when the defense doesn’t know what is coming their way on every single play. Yes red zone…we can work on that.

Also, I turned on the Packers game for one play yesterday, and Rodgers overthrew Greg Jennings by about 15 feet with no pressure on him. It happens. Relax, take a deep breath, and enjoy the first NFC West championship since ’02.

Even if it’s unintentional, CLAIM IT’S SATIRE…

Reads funnier and makes more sense that way.