49ers 2012 Free Agency Review: QBs

I'm going to be doing a series of posts covering various aspects of free agency. The first series of posts is going to be a review of each position, with a list of the players that the team has under contract as well as their own free agents. I'll also be giving the position a grade.

There's no denying that the QB position is the most important position in football. With a bad QB it's going to be almost impossible to win games in the regular season, much less the playoffs. The 49ers currently have two QBs under contract: Colin Kaepernick whom they moved up in the draft to get, and Scott Tolzien whom they acquired off waivers from the San Diego Chargers. Tolzien made no appearance for the team during the regular season, while Kaepernick only attempted 5 passes. There's no way to assign a grade for either of those two players.

The QB position for the 49ers revolves around Alex Smith who had a career year in nearly every category. Here are his stats for this past season.

The stats don't fully show what impact he had on the team with his 4th quarter drives to give the team the lead, most memorably vs Detroit early in the season and twice versus the Saints in the playoffs.

There's no reason at all for the team not to want him back, nor for him to not want to come back to the 49ers. I'd expect his salary to be somewhere in the $7-8 million per year range, something that's definitely a good bargain.

Assuming that the team re-signs him I'd rate the QB position at 4/5. Needs improvement, but not a priority.