QB Competition

Originally posted by niner4life21:

Originally posted by yoyo49:

Originally posted by Joecool:
Troy Aikman did not have a good year until Emmitt Smith broke out with 1500 yards, his first 1000 yard season.

Alex Smith had almost a 1700 yard back and his stats were not efficient.

Aikman had a 64% completion percentage whereas Alex Smith's was 58%.

Alex only had 6.5 yards per attempt and Aikman had 7.6.

Alex's rating 74.8 and Aikman's was 86.7.


Irvin went from a measly 400 yard 3rd year to a 1500 yard 4th year. I'm sorry, but Aikman was able to use Emmitt Smith's breakout year to his advantage whereas Alex Smith couldn't even take advantage of 8 sometimes 9 men fronts.





Oh, by the way, Alex was sacked every 12.6 attempts.
Aikman was sacked every 11.3 attempts.


Alex had a better running back and the lines were about even but the 9ers had better run blocking, either that or Gore ran better than Emmitt.

How come if Gore is the main reason for our success in 2006 and the main reason the Niners won 7 games.... and if Smith actually hurt the team in 2006.... how come he hasn't been able to replicate those kind of numbers? How come the niners haven't been able to improve on that win total? We have had Gore all these years but things actually got worse when Smith got hurt in 2007.

You guys give him all this credit for being this great runningback in 2006 but he hasn't been able to duplicate that kind of success. And its not Alex Smith's Fault because he has basically been injured during that time.

Just wondering...

You're seriously gonna bash on Gore, who was responsible for so many of our wins that year, and ever since, so you can defend this loser Smith.

wow wow wow wow.

I think its more of a physical attraction for Alex Leaf. I mean seriously. RB and QB are two different positions. What you have to understand is if the defense knows all you do is run. Hello 8 men in the box well 10 if Alex is starting. This is reason why Gore production slipped (not too bad though) after 2006. NO TEAM was scared of Alex Leaf throwing the ball and they still are not.

So YES IT WAS GORE in 2006 that made us receive most of those wins. If we had a decent QB we would have been in the playoffs with the way he was running that year.

Originally posted by 49er4eva:

Originally posted by niner4life21:

Originally posted by yoyo49:

Originally posted by Joecool:
Troy Aikman did not have a good year until Emmitt Smith broke out with 1500 yards, his first 1000 yard season.

Alex Smith had almost a 1700 yard back and his stats were not efficient.

Aikman had a 64% completion percentage whereas Alex Smith's was 58%.

Alex only had 6.5 yards per attempt and Aikman had 7.6.

Alex's rating 74.8 and Aikman's was 86.7.



Irvin went from a measly 400 yard 3rd year to a 1500 yard 4th year. I'm sorry, but Aikman was able to use Emmitt Smith's breakout year to his advantage whereas Alex Smith couldn't even take advantage of 8 sometimes 9 men fronts.





Oh, by the way, Alex was sacked every 12.6 attempts.
Aikman was sacked every 11.3 attempts.


Alex had a better running back and the lines were about even but the 9ers had better run blocking, either that or Gore ran better than Emmitt.

How come if Gore is the main reason for our success in 2006 and the main reason the Niners won 7 games.... and if Smith actually hurt the team in 2006.... how come he hasn't been able to replicate those kind of numbers? How come the niners haven't been able to improve on that win total? We have had Gore all these years but things actually got worse when Smith got hurt in 2007.

You guys give him all this credit for being this great runningback in 2006 but he hasn't been able to duplicate that kind of success. And its not Alex Smith's Fault because he has basically been injured during that time.

Just wondering...

You're seriously gonna bash on Gore, who was responsible for so many of our wins that year, and ever since, so you can defend this loser Smith.

wow wow wow wow.

I think its more of a physical attraction for Alex Leaf. I mean seriously. RB and QB are two different positions. What you have to understand is if the defense knows all you do is run. Hello 8 men in the box well 10 if Alex is starting. This is reason why Gore production slipped (not too bad though) after 2006. NO TEAM was scared of Alex Leaf throwing the ball and they still are not.

So YES IT WAS GORE in 2006 that made us receive most of those wins. If we had a decent QB we would have been in the playoffs with the way he was running that year.

Are you somehow blaming Alex for the dropoff in Gore's stats? Like as if it wasn't Hostler's playcalling or Martz's offensive scheme! Or the the fact that defenses have basically figured him out. Think about it, Gore came out of nowhere in '06. I think thats partly why his stats were so amazing. No one knew what to expect, they didn't respect his abilities. I still think Gore is a Top 10 RB, but there are multiple reasons for his stats falling. Its not just the QB's fault.

Originally posted by 49er4eva:

Originally posted by niner4life21:

Originally posted by yoyo49:

Originally posted by Joecool:
Troy Aikman did not have a good year until Emmitt Smith broke out with 1500 yards, his first 1000 yard season.

Alex Smith had almost a 1700 yard back and his stats were not efficient.

Aikman had a 64% completion percentage whereas Alex Smith's was 58%.

Alex only had 6.5 yards per attempt and Aikman had 7.6.

Alex's rating 74.8 and Aikman's was 86.7.


Irvin went from a measly 400 yard 3rd year to a 1500 yard 4th year. I'm sorry, but Aikman was able to use Emmitt Smith's breakout year to his advantage whereas Alex Smith couldn't even take advantage of 8 sometimes 9 men fronts.





Oh, by the way, Alex was sacked every 12.6 attempts.
Aikman was sacked every 11.3 attempts.


Alex had a better running back and the lines were about even but the 9ers had better run blocking, either that or Gore ran better than Emmitt.

How come if Gore is the main reason for our success in 2006 and the main reason the Niners won 7 games.... and if Smith actually hurt the team in 2006.... how come he hasn't been able to replicate those kind of numbers? How come the niners haven't been able to improve on that win total? We have had Gore all these years but things actually got worse when Smith got hurt in 2007.

You guys give him all this credit for being this great runningback in 2006 but he hasn't been able to duplicate that kind of success. And its not Alex Smith's Fault because he has basically been injured during that time.

Just wondering...

You're seriously gonna bash on Gore, who was responsible for so many of our wins that year, and ever since, so you can defend this loser Smith.

wow wow wow wow.

I think its more of a physical attraction for Alex Leaf. I mean seriously. RB and QB are two different positions. What you have to understand is if the defense knows all you do is run. Hello 8 men in the box well 10 if Alex is starting. This is reason why Gore production slipped (not too bad though) after 2006. NO TEAM was scared of Alex Leaf throwing the ball and they still are not.

So YES IT WAS GORE in 2006 that made us receive most of those wins. If we had a decent QB we would have been in the playoffs with the way he was running that year.

We DID have a decent quarterback.. It was not like Smith was some old vet scrub who had reached a peak or something -- he was a vastly improving, extremely young (21 in 2006), promising QB in his 2nd year and 1st full year as a starter. This was a year where he set a franchise record by being the first in team history to take every snap under center in a season.

There wasn't a single dang person shouting the word "bust" about him after his 2nd season concluded and the visual and statistical improvement was witnessed. I mean holy heck, people were excited about that. If he could make such a jump with just a year under his belt, people said there was no telling what he might do next year under Norv (though unfortunately Norv didn't stay and things went haywire the next season with Alex getting hurt).

But c'mon now. People were very, very pleased with his progress, as he was right around where he should've been for his age and that step in his development. Saying "If we had a decent QB" in 2006 doesn't even make sense. Give me a break. If you're at all thinking realistically, you're not going to EXPECT dominance out of a 21 year old QB in his first full season as a starter. Doing that is just stupidity. What you should've expected was large improvement from his rookie year -- and he absolutely accomplished that.

Just because we didn't make the playoffs in 2006 (which you could chalk up because of a missed FIELD GOAL and a dropped end zone pass), to say Smith wasn't decent based purely on Gore's numbers is completely wrong.

The 2006 Pittsburgh Steelers had Ben Roethlisberger passing for over 3500 yards, and Willie Parker racking up 1500 rushing and 13 TDs, yet they went 8-8 and missed the postseason. It's a team game, fellas. Smith could've easily been a "playoff QB" that year, had one or two plays gone the way they were supposed to for us.

Now, if he soon shows he can get it done, we'll be set for a long time at QB. If not, Hill is fine for now until we draft a new guy. But I don't doubt Smith's ability to prove the doubters wrong. It's all "wait and see" right now.

Originally posted by OnTheClock:

Originally posted by 49er4eva:

Originally posted by niner4life21:

Originally posted by yoyo49:

Originally posted by Joecool:
Troy Aikman did not have a good year until Emmitt Smith broke out with 1500 yards, his first 1000 yard season.

Alex Smith had almost a 1700 yard back and his stats were not efficient.

Aikman had a 64% completion percentage whereas Alex Smith's was 58%.

Alex only had 6.5 yards per attempt and Aikman had 7.6.

Alex's rating 74.8 and Aikman's was 86.7.


Irvin went from a measly 400 yard 3rd year to a 1500 yard 4th year. I'm sorry, but Aikman was able to use Emmitt Smith's breakout year to his advantage whereas Alex Smith couldn't even take advantage of 8 sometimes 9 men fronts.





Oh, by the way, Alex was sacked every 12.6 attempts.
Aikman was sacked every 11.3 attempts.


Alex had a better running back and the lines were about even but the 9ers had better run blocking, either that or Gore ran better than Emmitt.

How come if Gore is the main reason for our success in 2006 and the main reason the Niners won 7 games.... and if Smith actually hurt the team in 2006.... how come he hasn't been able to replicate those kind of numbers? How come the niners haven't been able to improve on that win total? We have had Gore all these years but things actually got worse when Smith got hurt in 2007.

You guys give him all this credit for being this great runningback in 2006 but he hasn't been able to duplicate that kind of success. And its not Alex Smith's Fault because he has basically been injured during that time.

Just wondering...

You're seriously gonna bash on Gore, who was responsible for so many of our wins that year, and ever since, so you can defend this loser Smith.

wow wow wow wow.

I think its more of a physical attraction for Alex Leaf. I mean seriously. RB and QB are two different positions. What you have to understand is if the defense knows all you do is run. Hello 8 men in the box well 10 if Alex is starting. This is reason why Gore production slipped (not too bad though) after 2006. NO TEAM was scared of Alex Leaf throwing the ball and they still are not.

So YES IT WAS GORE in 2006 that made us receive most of those wins. If we had a decent QB we would have been in the playoffs with the way he was running that year.

We DID have a decent quarterback.. It was not like Smith was some old vet scrub who had reached a peak or something -- he was a vastly improving, extremely young (21 in 2006), promising QB in his 2nd year and 1st full year as a starter. This was a year where he set a franchise record by being the first in team history to take every snap under center in a season.

There wasn't a single dang person shouting the word "bust" about him after his 2nd season concluded and the visual and statistical improvement was witnessed. I mean holy heck, people were excited about that. If he could make such a jump with just a year under his belt, people said there was no telling what he might do next year under Norv (though unfortunately Norv didn't stay and things went haywire the next season with Alex getting hurt).

But c'mon now. People were very, very pleased with his progress, as he was right around where he should've been for his age and that step in his development. Saying "If we had a decent QB" in 2006 doesn't even make sense. Give me a break. If you're at all thinking realistically, you're not going to EXPECT dominance out of a 21 year old QB in his first full season as a starter. Doing that is just stupidity. What you should've expected was large improvement from his rookie year -- and he absolutely accomplished that.

Just because we didn't make the playoffs in 2006 (which you could chalk up because of a missed FIELD GOAL and a dropped end zone pass), to say Smith wasn't decent based purely on Gore's numbers is completely wrong.

The 2006 Pittsburgh Steelers had Ben Roethlisberger passing for over 3500 yards, and Willie Parker racking up 1500 rushing and 13 TDs, yet they went 8-8 and missed the postseason. It's a team game, fellas. Smith could've easily been a "playoff QB" that year, had one or two plays gone the way they were supposed to for us.

Now, if he soon shows he can get it done, we'll be set for a long time at QB. If not, Hill is fine for now until we draft a new guy. But I don't doubt Smith's ability to prove the doubters wrong. It's all "wait and see" right now.

Originally posted by fan49:

Originally posted by OnTheClock:

Originally posted by 49er4eva:

Originally posted by niner4life21:

Originally posted by yoyo49:

Originally posted by Joecool:
Troy Aikman did not have a good year until Emmitt Smith broke out with 1500 yards, his first 1000 yard season.

Alex Smith had almost a 1700 yard back and his stats were not efficient.

Aikman had a 64% completion percentage whereas Alex Smith's was 58%.

Alex only had 6.5 yards per attempt and Aikman had 7.6.

Alex's rating 74.8 and Aikman's was 86.7.


Irvin went from a measly 400 yard 3rd year to a 1500 yard 4th year. I'm sorry, but Aikman was able to use Emmitt Smith's breakout year to his advantage whereas Alex Smith couldn't even take advantage of 8 sometimes 9 men fronts.





Oh, by the way, Alex was sacked every 12.6 attempts.
Aikman was sacked every 11.3 attempts.


Alex had a better running back and the lines were about even but the 9ers had better run blocking, either that or Gore ran better than Emmitt.

How come if Gore is the main reason for our success in 2006 and the main reason the Niners won 7 games.... and if Smith actually hurt the team in 2006.... how come he hasn't been able to replicate those kind of numbers? How come the niners haven't been able to improve on that win total? We have had Gore all these years but things actually got worse when Smith got hurt in 2007.

You guys give him all this credit for being this great runningback in 2006 but he hasn't been able to duplicate that kind of success. And its not Alex Smith's Fault because he has basically been injured during that time.

Just wondering...

You're seriously gonna bash on Gore, who was responsible for so many of our wins that year, and ever since, so you can defend this loser Smith.

wow wow wow wow.

I think its more of a physical attraction for Alex Leaf. I mean seriously. RB and QB are two different positions. What you have to understand is if the defense knows all you do is run. Hello 8 men in the box well 10 if Alex is starting. This is reason why Gore production slipped (not too bad though) after 2006. NO TEAM was scared of Alex Leaf throwing the ball and they still are not.

So YES IT WAS GORE in 2006 that made us receive most of those wins. If we had a decent QB we would have been in the playoffs with the way he was running that year.

We DID have a decent quarterback.. It was not like Smith was some old vet scrub who had reached a peak or something -- he was a vastly improving, extremely young (21 in 2006), promising QB in his 2nd year and 1st full year as a starter. This was a year where he set a franchise record by being the first in team history to take every snap under center in a season.

There wasn't a single dang person shouting the word "bust" about him after his 2nd season concluded and the visual and statistical improvement was witnessed. I mean holy heck, people were excited about that. If he could make such a jump with just a year under his belt, people said there was no telling what he might do next year under Norv (though unfortunately Norv didn't stay and things went haywire the next season with Alex getting hurt).

But c'mon now. People were very, very pleased with his progress, as he was right around where he should've been for his age and that step in his development. Saying "If we had a decent QB" in 2006 doesn't even make sense. Give me a break. If you're at all thinking realistically, you're not going to EXPECT dominance out of a 21 year old QB in his first full season as a starter. Doing that is just stupidity. What you should've expected was large improvement from his rookie year -- and he absolutely accomplished that.

Just because we didn't make the playoffs in 2006 (which you could chalk up because of a missed FIELD GOAL and a dropped end zone pass), to say Smith wasn't decent based purely on Gore's numbers is completely wrong.

The 2006 Pittsburgh Steelers had Ben Roethlisberger passing for over 3500 yards, and Willie Parker racking up 1500 rushing and 13 TDs, yet they went 8-8 and missed the postseason. It's a team game, fellas. Smith could've easily been a "playoff QB" that year, had one or two plays gone the way they were supposed to for us.

Now, if he soon shows he can get it done, we'll be set for a long time at QB. If not, Hill is fine for now until we draft a new guy. But I don't doubt Smith's ability to prove the doubters wrong. It's all "wait and see" right now.

Lmao at the crap in this topic. so gore is better than emitt smith now? and a team with the worst d in the nfl, the 2006 9ers, were good enough to make the playoffs? well im so surprised we had so many probowlers on that team and nobody told me! i wish we still had players like derek smith, keith lewis, brandon moore, ronald fields. after all those guys are so great that theyre all probowlers with their current teams, RIGHT?

Originally posted by yoyo49:

Originally posted by D_Niner:

Originally posted by yoyo49:

Originally posted by D_Niner:

Originally posted by yoyo49:


Really? So you actually watched Tampa Bay games in 1985 and 86? Back when there was only regional coverage, no internet, and no NFL sunday ticket? So how did you know Young was a more consistent then Smith if it was near impossible to see Young play at that time? (unless you lived in florida).

Anyway, here are Steve Young's stats his first 2 seasons at Tampa before being traded.

1985
Record: 1-4
Cmp%: 52.2
Yds: 935
TDs: 3
Int: 8
Ypg: 187.0
Rating: 56.9

1986
Record:2-12
Cmp%: 53.7
Yds: 2282
TDs: 8
Int: 13
Ypg: 163.0
Rating: 65.5

Alex Smith's first 2 years,

2005
Record: 2-5
Cmp%: 50.9
Yds: 875
TDs: 1
Int: 11
Rating: 40.8

2006
Record: 7-9
Cmp%: 58.1
Yds: 2890
TDs: 16
Int: 16
Rating: 74.8

Look, Alex is Alex and Steve is Steve. These are 2 different QB's. Just because one had success dosn't mean the other will. This is no different then saying Jay Cutlers second season was better then Montana's second season; therefore, Cutler will be a hall of famer... 1+1 does not equal 372...

All this info means is that its possible; not probable. With all that said, I hope Alex can make that jump; but, I honestly don't think he will...

I completely agree and I clearly stated in my last post that it wasn't my intent to make that kind of comparison. My intent was to show that a QB that has struggled early in his career and been proclaimed a bust is capable of turning his career around with a better surrounding cast and better coaching. It doesn't mean he will but he does have a legitimate chance in his current situation to do so.

Second, where do you guys keep coming up with this notion that Steve Young showed promise and consistency while at Tampa? Its not like you guys were actually watching the games to see it. I mean nobody was televising Tampa games in the 80's unless you lived in Florida and most of those households were watching the Dolphins. Second, even if you did get the Bucs on TV, why would you even be watching their games?

Just because Bill Walsh saw promise doesn't mean it was clearly evident that everyone else (like you and me) would also be able to see it. I thought that was one of Bill Walsh's great abilities; to see talent where everybody else saw trash?

Huh? I never said that about Steve...

Oh sorry, I was referencing something that Dirty and a couple of other posters had mentioned.

What a liar?!! I said nothing to the kind, don't elaborate. I said Bill walsh saw something trainable and developmental in him. Please don't lie!!!

Dirty

Originally posted by backontop:
So far from all the Alex Smith threads is that the Alex Smith supporters seem to be realistic in their expectations and their opinions are supported with facts. Where as the Alex Smith haters seem to be rather hostile and base their arguements on opinions and opinions only. Smith supporters are not hating on Hill and have openly stated that at this point in time Hill should be the starter unless Smith shows a vast improvement during the preseason. Smith haters claim to know the future and that Smith is 100000% a bust based on a partial rookie season a full second season and 3 games into the third season.

You seem to reside in Bizarro land, friend. Alex smith supporters say that he deserves another chance every year for this reason or that reason and that next year is the year - and it's excuse or injury. Smith supporters rewrite history based on obscure tidbits to justify a poor jersey purchase.
Smith doubters have history on their side as well as facts. We can take into account all the things that have crafted the current situation and make a logical decision/projection. Smith fans are "WISHING" for a result of smith RISING from the ashes and BECOMING the QB they all HOPED he'd be when he was drafted. Don't confuse the two realities. All 9er fans want the best QB to be ours - you just want it to be YOUR guy at the cost of the rest of the team.
Smith haters don't have a guy we just know that everyone who has held the QB reigns here in 9erland have been better than smith. Don't pretend that the zone and the real world were not excited about guys like Cody Pickett – It sounds like a joke now but Pickett had supporters too... Why? Because in reality Smith looked so bad that even nobody scrubs like Pickett looked better. Hence what we have currently with Hill, he just looks better than smith. (childs whining voice>>>> But Smith has looked good in prac-tice???) haven’t we heard this every year???
Now don’t get me wrong I KNOW that smith has sucked and there are reasons for it - but he has sucked,,, AND SUCKED ALOT! You only see the reasons for the suck (alexcuses) and are willing to stymie this TEAMS development on a slight chance that Smith can overcome his natural deficiencies (like no leadership, low processing power and very low natural instincts) and the poor handling that over time has accentuated those deficiencies. I don’t know where you are from but where I come from that is called GAMBLING!!! You so called supporters are hoping and wishing for him to buck his current trend. While us others are well aware of the trend and draw our conclusions based on the FACTS and the REALITY of the situation.
P.S. if smith had ever PROVEN anything then he'd be ready for a come back but he is the very definition of a "never was" and that is why this debate is so divisive. I hope for world peace - you hope for alex smith to not suck.

Dirty

Originally posted by Dirty9er:

Originally posted by backontop:
So far from all the Alex Smith threads is that the Alex Smith supporters seem to be realistic in their expectations and their opinions are supported with facts. Where as the Alex Smith haters seem to be rather hostile and base their arguements on opinions and opinions only. Smith supporters are not hating on Hill and have openly stated that at this point in time Hill should be the starter unless Smith shows a vast improvement during the preseason. Smith haters claim to know the future and that Smith is 100000% a bust based on a partial rookie season a full second season and 3 games into the third season.

You seem to reside in Bizarro land, friend. Alex smith supporters say that he deserves another chance every year for this reason or that reason and that next year is the year - and it's excuse or injury. Smith supporters rewrite history based on obscure tidbits to justify a poor jersey purchase.
Smith doubters have history on their side as well as facts. We can take into account all the things that have crafted the current situation and make a logical decision/projection. Smith fans are "WISHING" for a result of smith RISING from the ashes and BECOMING the QB they all HOPED he'd be when he was drafted. Don't confuse the two realities. All 9er fans want the best QB to be ours - you just want it to be YOUR guy at the cost of the rest of the team.
Smith haters don't have a guy we just know that everyone who has held the QB reigns here in 9erland have been better than smith. Don't pretend that the zone and the real world were not excited about guys like Cody Pickett – It sounds like a joke now but Pickett had supporters too... Why? Because in reality Smith looked so bad that even nobody scrubs like Pickett looked better. Hence what we have currently with Hill, he just looks better than smith. (childs whining voice>>>> But Smith has looked good in prac-tice???) haven’t we heard this every year???
Now don’t get me wrong I KNOW that smith has sucked and there are reasons for it - but he has sucked,,, AND SUCKED ALOT! You only see the reasons for the suck (alexcuses) and are willing to stymie this TEAMS development on a slight chance that Smith can overcome his natural deficiencies (like no leadership, low processing power and very low natural instincts) and the poor handling that over time has accentuated those deficiencies. I don’t know where you are from but where I come from that is called GAMBLING!!! You so called supporters are hoping and wishing for him to buck his current trend. While us others are well aware of the trend and draw our conclusions based on the FACTS and the REALITY of the situation.
P.S. if smith had ever PROVEN anything then he'd be ready for a come back but he is the very definition of a "never was" and that is why this debate is so divisive. I hope for world peace - you hope for alex smith to not suck.

Dirty

Great post. Along with Scotty McClueless, the hopers and dreamers in here are desperate to see Smith work out evne though facts, reality and basic common sense conclusion say otherwise. This explains the beating of the dead Alex Leaf horse. The sooner he's off the team the better off they'll be.

Dirty9er: "(childs whining voice>>>> But Smith has looked good in prac-tice???) haven’t we heard this every year??? "

No. We didn't hear it last year. What we heard was that JTO was doing much better than the other two because he already understood the Martz system. If we're going to be so passionate in our firm belief that Alex Smith can't play NFL football, let's at least be accurate.

... and these last two posts (before Brodie's) really show how much time can be wasted by trying to reason with the unreasonable. Against all evidence and vast majority opinion from those here and (more importantly) those who actually have NFL jobs and experience? Some people claim to know more and be absolutely unwilling to accept reality.

Does Alex have to fight the long odds of turning his career around and being the QB we need in SF? Absolutely ( I accept that while many QBs have overcome their subpar beginnings, there are more that have not )... but for the half-dozen here that continue to give him ZERO chance to succeed? Wow... All I can figure is that you are playing the odds so that (hopefully for you) you can come back and claim how brilliant you are at evaluation. Well it wouldn't make you brilliant... you took the safe odds. Or maybe for others, the losses over the years have warped your emotional states to the point where you just needed that 1 target (player) to blame and focus your hate/bitterness on. Maybe it's about where he was selected or how much money he was given. Either way, it makes me sad for you... sometimes mad... sometimes annoyed... but mostly just sad... Carrying around all that hate might seem fun to you, but it's... just not a good thing for you.

Yes, the odds are long for anyone. The chances are ALWAYS better that almost ANY given player entering the league will fail for a variety of reasons. Players have entered the league with everyone assuming they're going to be great and failed.

The safe bet is always failure. It kind of cracks me up the way some posters around here seem to feel superior for making the safe bet. Whatever.

Originally posted by OnTheClock:

Originally posted by 49er4eva:

Originally posted by niner4life21:

Originally posted by yoyo49:

Originally posted by Joecool:
Troy Aikman did not have a good year until Emmitt Smith broke out with 1500 yards, his first 1000 yard season.

Alex Smith had almost a 1700 yard back and his stats were not efficient.

Aikman had a 64% completion percentage whereas Alex Smith's was 58%.

Alex only had 6.5 yards per attempt and Aikman had 7.6.

Alex's rating 74.8 and Aikman's was 86.7.


Irvin went from a measly 400 yard 3rd year to a 1500 yard 4th year. I'm sorry, but Aikman was able to use Emmitt Smith's breakout year to his advantage whereas Alex Smith couldn't even take advantage of 8 sometimes 9 men fronts.





Oh, by the way, Alex was sacked every 12.6 attempts.
Aikman was sacked every 11.3 attempts.


Alex had a better running back and the lines were about even but the 9ers had better run blocking, either that or Gore ran better than Emmitt.

How come if Gore is the main reason for our success in 2006 and the main reason the Niners won 7 games.... and if Smith actually hurt the team in 2006.... how come he hasn't been able to replicate those kind of numbers? How come the niners haven't been able to improve on that win total? We have had Gore all these years but things actually got worse when Smith got hurt in 2007.

You guys give him all this credit for being this great runningback in 2006 but he hasn't been able to duplicate that kind of success. And its not Alex Smith's Fault because he has basically been injured during that time.

Just wondering...

You're seriously gonna bash on Gore, who was responsible for so many of our wins that year, and ever since, so you can defend this loser Smith.

wow wow wow wow.

I think its more of a physical attraction for Alex Leaf. I mean seriously. RB and QB are two different positions. What you have to understand is if the defense knows all you do is run. Hello 8 men in the box well 10 if Alex is starting. This is reason why Gore production slipped (not too bad though) after 2006. NO TEAM was scared of Alex Leaf throwing the ball and they still are not.

So YES IT WAS GORE in 2006 that made us receive most of those wins. If we had a decent QB we would have been in the playoffs with the way he was running that year.

We DID have a decent quarterback.. It was not like Smith was some old vet scrub who had reached a peak or something -- he was a vastly improving, extremely young (21 in 2006), promising QB in his 2nd year and 1st full year as a starter. This was a year where he set a franchise record by being the first in team history to take every snap under center in a season.

There wasn't a single dang person shouting the word "bust" about him after his 2nd season concluded and the visual and statistical improvement was witnessed. I mean holy heck, people were excited about that. If he could make such a jump with just a year under his belt, people said there was no telling what he might do next year under Norv (though unfortunately Norv didn't stay and things went haywire the next season with Alex getting hurt).

But c'mon now. People were very, very pleased with his progress, as he was right around where he should've been for his age and that step in his development. Saying "If we had a decent QB" in 2006 doesn't even make sense. Give me a break. If you're at all thinking realistically, you're not going to EXPECT dominance out of a 21 year old QB in his first full season as a starter. Doing that is just stupidity. What you should've expected was large improvement from his rookie year -- and he absolutely accomplished that.

Just because we didn't make the playoffs in 2006 (which you could chalk up because of a missed FIELD GOAL and a dropped end zone pass), to say Smith wasn't decent based purely on Gore's numbers is completely wrong.

The 2006 Pittsburgh Steelers had Ben Roethlisberger passing for over 3500 yards, and Willie Parker racking up 1500 rushing and 13 TDs, yet they went 8-8 and missed the postseason. It's a team game, fellas. Smith could've easily been a "playoff QB" that year, had one or two plays gone the way they were supposed to for us.

Now, if he soon shows he can get it done, we'll be set for a long time at QB. If not, Hill is fine for now until we draft a new guy. But I don't doubt Smith's ability to prove the doubters wrong. It's all "wait and see" right now.

To the bold: But why Pittsburgh missed the playoffs could be broken down into specific parts of the team and Big Ben was not one of those responsible as he held his responsibilities whereas we did not make the playoffs because there were too many games where our QB could barely do anything.

I think Damon Huard will win.

...just tryin' to change up the conversation.

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