I think what people are forgetting is that we rushed Alex Smith in to play during his rookie year... and it really hurt his development. Then year after year he had to learn a new OC's playbook... Hostler should have never got the job and that really hurt the team, especially Smith. Can any QB be great having to go through that? It's like a rookie season every year. Then to top it off Smith was injured for most of 2 seasons, 1 of them, trying to throw with a seperated shoulder. I think this to be most of the reason for the INTs in his stats. Has anyone ever tried to throw the ball with an injury to your throwing arm? I doubt anyone would be able to zip it anywhere. He might have seen a receiver moving in or out of a zone or beating his man but when he tried to get the ball there, like he knows he should be able to, his arm just couldn't get the ball out right.
I think it was good for Alex Smith to come in when he did yesterday rather than start week 1. First, he injured his thumb... I wouldn't want to risk him not being able to grip the ball, this is probably an additional reason why he didn't get the start at the beginning of the season. It also gave him a chance to learn the offense for 7 additional weeks before getting thrown out to the wolves again. And don't forget, under this number system, which Norv Turner used, we were 2 games, that we could've won, away from the playoffs. We were all excited about the following year which turned out to be the dreadful Hostler season. I think Smith could do really well now that we have more weapons on offense.
I'm not saying that Alex Smith is definately the 3rd coming of the Chosen One but I do think we need to give him a real opportunity to succeed now that he is healthy.
That being said, all the people out there calling Nate Davis the better QB thinking he should get the start... he really needs to sit and learn before playing against starting defenses in the NFL. Sure he looked good during preseason, but don't forget, his time on the field during the preseason was mostly against 2nds, 3rds and others trying to make their teams final roster... playing at or about the same speed as he was use to in college. Let Davis get up to speed with the NFL and learn the system and maybe we'll see what he can really do in the future.
Let's just hope that Jimmy Raye can get things going with our offense and he sticks around... else we'll be back to being garbage on offense with another new OC. If it ever comes to that, I'd like to see if we can get Holmgren.
Hill sucks... he's slow with the progressions and doesn't have an arm. Like someone said in an early post, 3 and outs are just as bad as turnovers. There's a reason why we've sat at the bottom in the league in offensive stats... Hill is not a bonafide starter in this league for any team. Sure, give him all the time in the world in the pocket and he'll find that guy that finally got wide open.
Smith will help make defenses play honest and not stack the box. Correction... Smith, Gore, V.Davis, Crabtree, Bruce, Battle and Morgan will force defenses to play honest helping our O-Line to do a better job. If Smith can't continue to get the job done, then we'll know for sure that we need to find another QB and can be done with the Smith/Hill saga. If he can get it done, it's about damn time and there will no longer be a contoversy. We can let Nate Davis develop and hopefully see his true potential as an NFL QB.
Before the 2nd half of yesterday's game, it was hard to watch all the highs and lows of each game. It's really exhausting to go from pissed-off mad, yelling at the offense through tv to hootin and hollering for our defense making up the difference. Sure, while Hill was under center we were above .500... but our defense was scoring and we were playing mediocre teams. Hill got credit for more than he was worth and our offense was horrible. It's great to finally see some offense... I just hope it continues. We were playing from behind in the second half and I realize that we weren't playing against a great defense that was not ready for Alex Smith which might have inflated my feeling of returned hope for the team. Let's see what happens this week as we prepare for the Colts, who'll also be more prepared for our new offense.
Let's starting hitting people in the mouth in all phases of this game.
LET'S GO NINERS, LET'S GO!
[ Edited by 9erfaithful on Oct 26, 2009 at 3:40 AM ]
