Alright, so I've been looking over the numbers and it seems like there is still a ton of disagreement on how good Alex Smith was in 2011 and what that means for him going forward.

Ideally, you want his performance to be adjusted for the following:

1. the quality of the opponent played

2. the circumstances of the play (clutchness, situation, non-garbage time, etc.)

3. rushing and scrambling ability -- sack avoidance

So I think I've come up with an all-inclusive look at QB Performance. What I did is take total effective yards, produced by FootballOutsiders.com -- it adjusts total yardage for strength of opponent and game situation. I then combined it with effective rushing yards -- this now gives me a "total effective yards" metric for quarterbacks. I then added up the number of attempted pass plays -- this includes sacks and botched snaps -- and combined it with number of rushes. Finally, I combined passing touchdowns with rushing touchdowns and interceptions with fumbles lost. I then used these figures to re-calculate quarterback rating -- I used the quarterback's official completion percentage for part (a) of the QB Rating Formula and used total effective yards, scores, and turnovers for the rest of the formula (formula Referenced at bottom of jump).

This provides a complete, clear look at what a quarterback produces when the ball is in his hands. When we do that, we see that Alex Smith was the 10th-Ranked Quarterback in the NFL in 2011, between Eli Manning and Philip Rivers. If you throw out Jason Campbell, who was having a great season until hurt (lower sample size), Alex Smith is 9th. If the playoffs are factored in, where Alex 'stepped it up' - he moves up to 6th or 7th.

Player Total Effective QB Rating (Effective Run and Pass Yards)

A.Rodgers - 126.00

D.Brees - 118.57

T.Brady - 110.08

T.Romo - 103.81

M.Schaub - 97.07

M.Stafford - 96.91

M.Ryan - 95.15

J.Campbell - 93.98

E.Manning - 89.51

Alex Smith - 88.22

This is significantly better than his performance in 2010 and 2011, about 1/6th better to be exact. In 2009 and 2010, he performed in a similar capacity to Mark Sanchez. I expect even more improvement in 2012 with a full offseason, better receivers, and a corrected mechanical delivery. The link to the spreadsheet is below.

Total Effective Quarterback Rating

Player Total Effective QB Rating (Effective Run and Pass Yards)

A.Rodgers - 126.00

D.Brees - 118.57

T.Brady - 110.08

T.Romo - 103.81

M.Schaub - 97.07

M.Stafford - 96.91

M.Ryan - 95.15

J.Campbell - 93.98

E.Manning - 89.51

Alex Smith - 88.22

P.Rivers - 86.89

C.Newton - 86.08

Roethlisberg - 85.50

M.Vick- 85.41

D.McNabb - 82.42

A.Dalton - 80.39

M.Hasselbeck-80.34

D.Orlovsky - 79.11

J.Cutler - 77.99

T.Jackson - 77.29

J.Flacco - 76.96

C.Henne - 76.87

R.Fitzpatrick - 76.83

M.Moore - 76.52

M.Sanchez - 74.57

C.Palmer- 73.64

J.Freeman- 72.47

K.Clemens- 71.66

C.McCoy- 71.56

M.Cassel- 68.45

J.Beck - 68.24

K.Kolb - 67.64

T.J.Yates- 66.53

R.Grossma- 65.38

T.Tebow- 62.52

C.Ponder- 60.94

J.Skelton- 60.46

S.Bradford- 58.37

K.Collins- 55.01

C.Painter- 53.17

V.Young- 52.55

T.Palko- 51.37

B.Gabbert- 50.25

A.J.Feeley- 47.35

QB Rating Formula

a = (((Comp/Att) * 100) -30) / 20

b = ((TDs/Att) * 100) / 5

c = (9.5 - ((Int/Att) * 100)) / 4

d = ((Yards/Att) - 3) / 4

a, b, c and d can not be greater than 2.375 or less than zero.