Signing Pat White is (Probably) a Mistake

A couple of disclaimers before I get into the nitty-gritty of this post. First, and this hardly needs to be said, I totally trust Jim Harbaugh when it comes to QB decisions. 100%. If he sees something in Pat White, then I'm a stupid poo-head. He's right. Second, I'm all for bringing in some competition, so long as it doesn't adversely hurt us from a cap perspective. Due to White's history, he would probably be really cheap.

But, I don't like the idea of bringing Pat White into camp at the expense of a different, probably better, QB. All signs indicate that Mr. White is washed up. With his noodle-arm, he was probably washed up before ever being drafted.

And this is my problem: I would rather have a better, "traditional" passer as a backup. We should bring in the best QBs available to backup Colin Kaepernick—and that likely means we should bring in the best pure passer.

I get the Pat White logic. As an agility type of QB, he can, hopefully, reproduce some of the plays that distinguish Colin from other QBs. I get the logic, but I don't think it's exactly right.

First off, what makes Colin so good is that he IS a pocket passer. The man is so accurate inside the pocket, it's insane. He can hit the smallest windows. I'm continually impressed. The fact that the can run for massive amounts of yardage in addition to this just takes this offense to an even more explosive level.

And this is why the Pat White logic isn't quite right: White cannot even begin to reproduce Colin's talent and skill set on the field. I don't care that they have a similar style of play—the fact remains that Colin is night and day better than White. I think this just lends credence to the idea that we should bring in the best QB possible, regardless of skill set.

Who can produce at a high level? I don't think the answer to that question is Pat White.