The 2010 San Francisco 49ers did it again, they lost yet another game because of a costly turnover that gave the winless starving Carolina Panthers the ball in great field position with a young top gun quarterback in Matt Moore who orchestrated a drive with just over a minute to go to put the winning field goal on the board 23-20 Carolina. The costly interception by back-up quarterback David Carr cost the 49ers not only their season but their ability to even comprehend that they had a legitimate back-up to Alex Smith at all as they sent veteran game winning quarterback Shaun Hill packing last year for the ever inconsistent Carr.
Just two weeks ago, San Francisco 49er fans all in and around Candlestick Park screamed for Alex Smith's head and announced; "We want Carr!" Yet when you look at what he is and why we went with Alex Smith right out of training camp it is easy to understand why he is simply available only in emergencies. Now we can legitimately say and think we don't want him in any situation at all. Heck it was crystal clear that when David Carr came in after the knock-out blow that sent Alex Smith to the turf with a sprained shoulder that there was absolutely little faith in his passing abilities because we simply did not play aggressively and instantly retreated from putting the game away all together.
Look at where we are now (1-6); a season in shatters because of a variety of reasons the first and foremost being the quarterback position and then costly turnovers and penalties. The Seattle Seahawks and Arizona Cardinals are running away with the division as we speak. We keep digging our own personal graves one Sunday right after another as we fail to see that the decisions made by coaching and upper management in deciding to stick it out with a real calculated risk in Alex Smith and even more light headedly deciding to ship out a proven winner in Shaun Hill for another snap-shot of inconsistency in David Carr simply blows my mind away. Legitimately the San Francisco 49ers have made this year the trade stamp of staying true to their first round draft choice in 2005, and opting not to spend money or a draft pick on a proven commodity that has already stated success in the very likes of a Donovan McNabb who went quickly to the Washington Redskins. Jeff Garcia now in the UFL playing for the Omaha Nighthawks is and was still available a proven commodity in Philadelphia and Tampa Bay consecutively.
Here we stand with ideal weapons of utter destruction offensively and no one to throw the ball to them and lead them with courage and inspiration into battle each and every Sunday as we wind into the second half of the 2010 season of the NFL. Still just last week before the Battle of the Bay took place many of the offensive players on our roster spoke in defense of Alex Smith and commented on his work ethic and his surreal convictions of making every San Francisco 49er fan believe that he was still the legitimate and rightful choice to lead this team out on the field and into battle for a division that was absolutely ripe for the picking this year in 2010.
He fooled ownership, management and even the coaches who stand steadfastly by in their beliefs that Alex Smith is the future of our proud franchise steered long ago by the remarkable Joe Montana, Steve Young and Yes even Jeff Garcia Pro Bowlers who sweat on the field and were successes on the field of battle and in the playoffs. Our great inventor and inspiration in former head coach, consultant and general manager in Bill Walsh would be absolutely beside himself in believing that we had chosen wisely in taking Alex Smith in the 2005 NFL Draft as he has always looked at and believed in a West Coast Offensive Mind Philosophy with his last choice of which was Jeff Garcia out of the Canadian Football League and the Calgary Stampeders. Walsh was and forever will be known as the greatest quarterback and player evaluator of all time simply because he had a God given gift of knowing and identifying true football talent.
Since his departure and passing we have sunk to all time lows and have been relegated to being a bottom dwelling nobody in our own division looking up rather than down season after season after season. In fact it was Bill Walsh who tapped the last winning head coach and quarterback together collectively in Steve Mariucci and Jeff Garcia. No one in the San Francisco 49er organization can deny this nor can any fan either as it is a true distinctive reality. Since then we have seen Dennis Erickson an absolute flop of a head coach and then Mike Nolan a man with an ego bigger than life and not a true evaluator of football talent as he himself hand-picked Alex Smith over Aaron Rodgers who has had amazing success as the starting quarterback for the Green Bay Packers.
What is even more callous is that we let Shaun Hill go even though at one time out of a training camp he proved to be more worthy a starter than our first round draft choice in Alex Smith and proved to be a winner out on the field with a team back then that played rather conservatively rather than with aggression in Mike Singletary's early days as our head coach. As we lost games because of the offensive philosophies of both Singletary and his coordinator the decision was made to try and salvage the season with shotgun pass happy Alex Smith who sparked the offense but then as quickly as he sparked it played with inaccuracy, inconsistency and now leads the league in interceptions and overall low quarterback ratings and a record of far more losses starting as our quarterback then wins. I saw Shaun Hill on many occasions rally our offense in the last quarter and win without turning the ball over yet he is in Detroit and we are with David Carr?
This organization under President Jed York all the way down to Mike Singletary is in total denial that we have overstated and miscalculated in sticking with Alex Smith as our quarterback and made further miscues in acquiring a known brand of inconsistency in David Carr and having him nudge out Shaun Hill for the back-up position opposite Alex Smith. Think of what might have happened had Shaun Hill been still with us and he was called upon when Alex Smith went down to a devastating injury that knocked him so far out of two games looking forward?
Case in point our number three quarterback position in former Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith is getting the call over David Carr to begin the game against the Denver Broncos overseas in London, England as we speak? If this organization had as much confidence in starting Alex Smith why wouldn't they stick with David Carr for a full game and give him his due? He threw a game changing interception in Carolina there is no doubt to that but how many has Alex Smith thrown and lived another day to start the team all over again? This is what I have a hard time processing in my mind?
If your season is truly lost at (1-6) and mathematically it really is, why not see what David Carr is made of since we are the ones that chose him over Hill to begin with? Troy Smith was not successful with the Baltimore Ravens and is another calculated risk like David Carr is. I'd like to see Nate Davis be the starter as I was pleasantly impressed on what I saw out of him with his arm in the pre-season. But then again who are we anyways we are just the fans screaming in the stands exhausted and frustrated that we have to endure so much incompetence.
Sources of Information: Mercury News.com, SF Gate.com, Inside Bay Area.com, NFL.com and my own personal analysis and opinion.
