Originally posted by dj43:
Larry Krueger, one of the staff at KNBR in San Francisco, had some interesting comments yesterday on Alex Smith's situation with the 49ers. He noted all the back and forth, particularly in the area that "the 49ers should do the right thing by Alex and reward him with a free release so he could find the best possible situation for him." So he decided to "use my sources with the 49ers" to see what their position might be.
What he learned was that Harbaalke is likely to play hardball with Smith in the offseason. They believe he is worth a 1st or at least a 2nd round draft choice and will try to trade him for such. However, they will not trade him to Arizona and would prefer to trade him to an AFC team if possible. If they cannot find a suitable trading partner, they will keep him as backup next season (the last of his current 3 year contract). They believe they can win a Super Bowl with this current roster and Smith as QB though they obviously prefer Kaepernick. They know that most of their key players are at the peak of their careers and the time to win it all is now. Therefore they are not willing to take a chance on Tolzien or some other rookie or FA. Smith's $8MILLION salary is less than over half the starting QBs in the league and roughly $2MILLION more than the backup average. Considering the quality of Alex' potential play in relief of an injured Kaepernick, they believe that keeping him on the roster would be worthwhile investment to assure that they can put a SB ring on the hands of players now on the roster. IOW, they are willing to go all in to win this season and next while Willis, Bowman, Crabtree and friends are healthy and at their prime.
I'm a bit skeptical of this, simply because some of the most basic details are incorrect. Next season is not the last year of his three year contract, this was the first year of the new contract (remember he was a FA in the offseason, went to Miami etc), so next year is the second year of three.