Originally posted by LottDMontanaO:
Thanks for at least a serious response. I tried this 'controversial' post (if you really want to call it that) on Niner Talk to see if I could get some good feedback/thoughts with the trade deadline coming tomorrow...Baalke admitted today they looked at WR Lloyd to improve our depth there (which we need) and said they're always looking to improve at every position. Well, what's the most important position in the NFL? We know the answer to that. From the responses, or lack thereof, I've received here, it tells me many fans would just be comfortable having Kaep step in for Smith. Hopefully, that will never happen and Smith will stay healthy. It's just been nice in the past with the great Niner teams to have that sense of security, knowing that a quality and experienced (non-rookie) backup QB was ready to go if Montana or Young went down.
We do have reason to be worried considering the shoulder problems alex has had, but at the same time you should keep in mind that the Kaepernick we saw in preseason isn't necessarily the guy we would see late in the season after learning way more of the playbook, hopefully improving his reads, not staring down receivers as much, ect. Smith didn't necessarily look good in his limited preseason time either.
Plus our QBs are basically just game managers right now, I'm sure tolzien or kaep could at least play that role if needed. Alex's 190 yds/game are not exactly unobtainable by a rookie.
Harbaugh is going to choose the best backups he can get and if those are rookies so be it, much better than the mcnabb or mccowns of the league. We definitely aren't wasting picks on someone elses mediocre starter like Orton when our philosophy has and will be to build by drafting and developing.
It's an issue most of us don't even want to think about. But I'm confident one of them would step up at the end of the year if that happens. If you think about it any team that loses its #1 qb doesn't expect to win the superbowl, we've got a big enough lead that we'd probably still at least make the playoffs lol.
If you asked me which I would rather have:
The backups from last year(troy and carr), or the backups from this year(tolzien and kaep), I'd much rather have the rookies. Any sort of veterans are going to be similar to troy and carr- used up busts who never were good period.
[ Edited by mike on Oct 17, 2011 at 8:04 PM ]