Alex Smith, 6th Best QB in the NFL (That's Right!)

Originally posted by Gavintech:

Originally posted by Shaj:

Originally posted by backontop:

Originally posted by Gavintech:

Originally posted by nj49erfan:
Rule of thumb is when you have to describe the stat and most people still don't get it, it's probably not a real stat. Or at least not one any one should care about.

With that said Alex is going to be fine next year. Just not 6th best at anything.

Another game has gone by and he's still #1 in red zone QB rating from what I understand. Maybe he'll be 6th best at that next year?

I think it is funny that the haters beleive that anyone who doesn't hate Smith thinks he is going to be the MVP of the league. The truth is the people who are supporting Smith have never said anything along those lines. Most are saying that he showed improvement and progression and deserves to start next season. But hey I guess if you are blind to the improvement and progression that Smith has made then you would be blind to everything else as well.

The word "improvement" is very situation specific. The man improved from an F to a C over the course of 5 years. If I improve from getting 5 DUI's a year down to 3 DUI's a year, do you think that is worthy of excitement? The point is, he may have improved, but he has just cracked an average of 80 passer rating average for the first time in his career, and still has only one 300 yard game, and WAY more INTs than TDs. The list goes on and on. It's not that "haters" hate, they just aren't as delusional as the Smith bandwagoners are.

Alex Smith was already a C his second season. He played three games before getting hurt the next year with receivers that lead the league in drops and had Jim Hostler as the OC for those three games... And still I'd give him a C for those three games too.

He hasn't played since (unless you count three games with a grade 3 separated shoulder) and is playing better than he was when he last played. Its not an F to a C over 5 years. That happened in less than two years (05 and 06). Having not played a full season since then he's gone from a C to at least a B- or B for half of this season.

He's played in 42 games. You can see the progression unless you make it a point to pretend it hasn't and isn't happening. The first 10 games were an F. The next 10 a D. A C for the next 10, and a C+ to a B throughout the last 10.

Alex has lived through a very unique scenario for an NFL QB (all the "excuses" everyone is always complaining about), is still very young for an NFL player, and doesn't have a huge amount of NFL experience to date.

What he has had is linear progression the more he plays. You cant deny that, if do you lose all credibility with the intellectually honest and most people that actually pay attention. If you are willing to admit that he has progressed and gotten better the more he's played then you can have the opinion that this is it, he's hit the ceiling, and you might even be right about that. But you can't say he hasn't progressed and gotten better throughout his career. He has.

a "B" in his last 10, eh ? And how bout Manning and Brees ? They get an "A" of course. So you're telling me that Smith in his last ten games has played just one level below Brees and Manning ? And if we gave guys like McNabb and and Romo a "B" rating (cause obviously they havent been playing at the same level as Manning/Brees), you're telling me that Smith is every bit as good as Romo/McNabb.

This is what you're implying right ?

What's killing me bout smith recently are his poor deep passes. IMO he has earned the right to start next year, but he's reached his ceiling and won't be getting any better.

Originally posted by nickbradley:

Originally posted by dman:
Manning
Brady
Brees
Rivers
Rothlisberger

Smith???

Forgot Favre (6th). Smith and Favre are at 33% DVOA.

and McNabb, Palmer,

Originally posted by lamontb:
What's killing me bout smith recently are his poor deep passes. IMO he has earned the right to start next year, but he's reached his ceiling and won't be getting any better.

he has no clue about placment of the ball ! Craptree should have scored on the that 50 yard deep pass , but as usual Alex has no clue where to place the ball !

Originally posted by solidg2000:

Originally posted by Shaj:

Originally posted by backontop:

Originally posted by Shaj:

Originally posted by backontop:

Originally posted by Gavintech:

Originally posted by nj49erfan:
Rule of thumb is when you have to describe the stat and most people still don't get it, it's probably not a real stat. Or at least not one any one should care about.

With that said Alex is going to be fine next year. Just not 6th best at anything.

Another game has gone by and he's still #1 in red zone QB rating from what I understand. Maybe he'll be 6th best at that next year?

I think it is funny that the haters beleive that anyone who doesn't hate Smith thinks he is going to be the MVP of the league. The truth is the people who are supporting Smith have never said anything along those lines. Most are saying that he showed improvement and progression and deserves to start next season. But hey I guess if you are blind to the improvement and progression that Smith has made then you would be blind to everything else as well.

The word "improvement" is very situation specific. The man improved from an F to a C over the course of 5 years. If I improve from getting 5 DUI's a year down to 3 DUI's a year, do you think that is worthy of excitement? The point is, he may have improved, but he has just cracked an average of 80 passer rating average for the first time in his career, and still has only one 300 yard game, and WAY more INTs than TDs. The list goes on and on. It's not that "haters" hate, they just aren't as delusional as the Smith bandwagoners are.

Smith had more INT's than TD's this season??? Thats odd because NFL.com says Smith has 17TD's and 12 INT's. But hey hate on

It also says he is the 20th rated passer in the NFL this season. I was talking about his carrer, which carries equally ugly stats: 36TD, 43 INTs. Nice attempt at convenient confusion though.

Yeah and Namath had 173 TDs to 220 ints

I think dude burst into flames reading that

First off, that stat is ridiculous

Smith needs to learn how to read D's a lot better. And I think we can see him getting better at it. He looks bad against D's like Philly cuz that's a really good D and they game plan against him. With the experience he got playing against that Philly D, it'll help that next time around, or that next D that plays to Philly's level.

Up to that game, I think he threw like 7 TD's in the 3 games prior, and somewhere around 750 yards. Once he understands what's being thrown at him, once he sees more, the INTs will cut down.

He's getting better in each and every game.

I was one of the people who b***hed and complained about that pass to Crabtree. But what do you expect from a QB who started the season as the backup throwing to a rookie wideout with no training camp and wasn't even with the team for 5 games.

The guy has done better than I expected with what he's given. Once he has a line that can give him those extra seconds, and he gets comfortable enough to believe they will give him that time, we'll see him flourish.

Originally posted by solidg2000:

Originally posted by Shaj:

Originally posted by backontop:

Originally posted by Shaj:

Originally posted by backontop:

Originally posted by Gavintech:

Originally posted by nj49erfan:
Rule of thumb is when you have to describe the stat and most people still don't get it, it's probably not a real stat. Or at least not one any one should care about.

With that said Alex is going to be fine next year. Just not 6th best at anything.

Another game has gone by and he's still #1 in red zone QB rating from what I understand. Maybe he'll be 6th best at that next year?

I think it is funny that the haters beleive that anyone who doesn't hate Smith thinks he is going to be the MVP of the league. The truth is the people who are supporting Smith have never said anything along those lines. Most are saying that he showed improvement and progression and deserves to start next season. But hey I guess if you are blind to the improvement and progression that Smith has made then you would be blind to everything else as well.

The word "improvement" is very situation specific. The man improved from an F to a C over the course of 5 years. If I improve from getting 5 DUI's a year down to 3 DUI's a year, do you think that is worthy of excitement? The point is, he may have improved, but he has just cracked an average of 80 passer rating average for the first time in his career, and still has only one 300 yard game, and WAY more INTs than TDs. The list goes on and on. It's not that "haters" hate, they just aren't as delusional as the Smith bandwagoners are.

Smith had more INT's than TD's this season??? Thats odd because NFL.com says Smith has 17TD's and 12 INT's. But hey hate on

It also says he is the 20th rated passer in the NFL this season. I was talking about his carrer, which carries equally ugly stats: 36TD, 43 INTs. Nice attempt at convenient confusion though.

Yeah and Namath had 173 TDs to 220 ints

*sigh* more selective data analysis. Namath also had this one little minor trivial thing called "lots of wins" that Smith does not have. He also brought attitude and leadership to the huddle and would win the big games.

Originally posted by cNiner:

Originally posted by lamontb:
What's killing me bout smith recently are his poor deep passes. IMO he has earned the right to start next year, but he's reached his ceiling and won't be getting any better.

he has no clue about placment of the ball ! Craptree should have scored on the that 50 yard deep pass , but as usual Alex has no clue where to place the ball !

the scary part was when asked about that he didn't say yeah i underthrew him a bit he said he meant to throw it there so somehow crabtree could come back to get it. why not try hitting the guy in stride once????

You guys may not want to believe it but he is playing at the level of a Shaun Hill if you look at the papers.

Now when you visually watch them both play, Hill appears to have "it" more than Smith.

That alone should bring up a lot of concerns.

Originally posted by Joecool:
You guys may not want to believe it but he is playing at the level of a Shaun Hill if you look at the papers.

Now when you visually watch them both play, Hill appears to have "it" more than Smith.

That alone should bring up a lot of concerns.

Originally posted by Mex49:

Originally posted by Joecool:
You guys may not want to believe it but he is playing at the level of a Shaun Hill if you look at the papers.

Now when you visually watch them both play, Hill appears to have "it" more than Smith.

That alone should bring up a lot of concerns.

Smith's 6.1 ypa to Hill's 6.0 ypa
Smith's 2.8 yards per rush to Hill's 8 yards per rush
Smith's 0.70 INTs per pass to Hill's 0.40 INTs per pass
Smith's 80.2 Rating to Hill's 79.6
Smith's 19 sacks in 9 games to Hill's 18 sacks in 7 games
Smith's 60.5% to Hill's 56.1

I really only think 2 stats are important when evaluating a QB. Td-Int ratio and yards per attempt. You won't find any bad Qbs with good stats in these areas. Alex is only average in the Td-Int ratio and in the bottom on yards per attempt (6.0) for that he is a failure at his position.

Originally posted by Joecool:

Originally posted by Mex49:

Originally posted by Joecool:
You guys may not want to believe it but he is playing at the level of a Shaun Hill if you look at the papers.

Now when you visually watch them both play, Hill appears to have "it" more than Smith.

That alone should bring up a lot of concerns.

Smith's 6.1 ypa to Hill's 6.0 ypa
Smith's 2.8 yards per rush to Hill's 8 yards per rush
Smith's 0.70 INTs per pass to Hill's 0.40 INTs per pass
Smith's 80.2 Rating to Hill's 79.6
Smith's 19 sacks in 9 games to Hill's 18 sacks in 7 games
Smith's 60.5% to Hill's 56.1

Can you add yards/game and TD passes/game to that list? I'm just curious. I was a Hill supporter at the beginning of the year, but after watching the two play, these are the two areas that felt like they improved.


Edit: did the math myself, hopefully correct. About 235 ypg each, Smith 1.9 TD/game versus 1.25 td/game for Hill. No huge difference

Originally posted by Nuns:

Originally posted by Joecool:

Originally posted by Mex49:

Originally posted by Joecool:
You guys may not want to believe it but he is playing at the level of a Shaun Hill if you look at the papers.

Now when you visually watch them both play, Hill appears to have "it" more than Smith.

That alone should bring up a lot of concerns.

Smith's 6.1 ypa to Hill's 6.0 ypa
Smith's 2.8 yards per rush to Hill's 8 yards per rush
Smith's 0.70 INTs per pass to Hill's 0.40 INTs per pass
Smith's 80.2 Rating to Hill's 79.6
Smith's 19 sacks in 9 games to Hill's 18 sacks in 7 games
Smith's 60.5% to Hill's 56.1

Can you add yards/game and TD passes/game to that list? I'm just curious. I was a Hill supporter at the beginning of the year, but after watching the two play, these are the two areas that felt like they improved.

Yards per game is not as viable as yards per completion. If one guy throws the ball much more than the other guy, than the one who gets to throw the ball more will most likely have more yards per game.

As for TD/Game, you should look at TD passes per attempts and Smith betters Hill 20 attempts per TD to Hill's 30 per TD. HOWEVER, last year in an offense that was adjusted to HILL'S strengths, he had a TD for every 22 attempts.

Their stats are more even than we think but Hill passed the eye test more than Smith does. I'm just saying, Smith isn't playing better than a "career backup" with a noodle arm and it should be a concern.

Originally posted by Joecool:

Originally posted by 4evrfan:

Originally posted by Shaj:

Originally posted by backontop:

Originally posted by Gavintech:

Originally posted by nj49erfan:
Rule of thumb is when you have to describe the stat and most people still don't get it, it's probably not a real stat. Or at least not one any one should care about.

With that said Alex is going to be fine next year. Just not 6th best at anything.

Another game has gone by and he's still #1 in red zone QB rating from what I understand. Maybe he'll be 6th best at that next year?

I think it is funny that the haters beleive that anyone who doesn't hate Smith thinks he is going to be the MVP of the league. The truth is the people who are supporting Smith have never said anything along those lines. Most are saying that he showed improvement and progression and deserves to start next season. But hey I guess if you are blind to the improvement and progression that Smith has made then you would be blind to everything else as well.

The word "improvement" is very situation specific. The man improved from an F to a C over the course of 5 years. If I improve from getting 5 DUI's a year down to 3 DUI's a year, do you think that is worthy of excitement? The point is, he may have improved, but he has just cracked an average of 80 passer rating average for the first time in his career, and still has only one 300 yard game, and WAY more INTs than TDs. The list goes on and on. It's not that "haters" hate, they just aren't as delusional as the Smith bandwagoners are.

Not only that, but he actually has regressed over a pretty good start. He's back to missing receivers entirely, even when not under duress; throwing too late; poor pocket sense, often running into sacks or not running when he should; staring down receivers and failing to pump fake (accounting for numerous blocked passes); not leading receivers to allow for YAC; hoorendous record of 3rd down conversions, nto to mention converting turnovers into points; the list is right there in front of you and the most disturbing thing is, it's essentially the same list from his very first year! Certainly you can't blame it all on Alex, but a good sum, yes you can. Yes, he's better, but is he better enough? Right now, the answer is no and I'm starting to think it' not going to appreciably improve, at leats not to the point we can call him a premier QB. And it hurts me to say it, 'cause I've always pulled for him.

You forgot to mention his averages are right on par with Hill's averages.

You're right! I also don't see where Alex's stronger arm has made any noticeable difference either. I'm hoping for a 1 year metamorphosis like Vernon's, and we all see the Alex we'd hoped for. Just skeptical that'll ever happen, esp since he's making the same mistakes and bad throws he did when first entering the league.