QB Competition

This is bound to be locked soon.

Norcal9er fan makes a good point! Based on what we've seen so far, Shaun Hill should start! There, Norcal9er, do you feel better?

This is turning into Rise of the Alex Smith Phoenix part 2. And if it does get locked, theres going to be some other thread that starts off as a decent debatable topic, and ultimately turn into, Shaun Hill vs Alex Smith.

Originally posted by bigmike55:
This is turning into Rise of the Alex Smith Phoenix part 2. And if it does get locked, theres going to be some other thread that starts off as a decent debatable topic, and ultimately turn into, Shaun Hill vs Alex Smith.

Well, if you want to get back to the "competition", then Hill still has the lead. Honestly, I really don't know how Hill can lose the lead. Even if he doesn't play well in preseason, he will always be considered as a "gamer" when it counts until he sucks in a game that means something. So, if he plays average in preseason and Smith plays well, then I still don't see Hill losing his job. The Rams game when he convinced Singletary to keep him in says a lot about Hill as a player to his head coach.

Yes, Hill has the job right now, which means Alex has a crap load to prove before he unseats Hill. Honestly, there is no competition. There's just a guy who Singletary trusts in starting and his backup who has "potential" but has never really shown complete mastery yet.

Originally posted by Joecool:

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.

Are you sure it was the QB and not just our entire team, especially a horrible defense, that "could barely do anything" ? -- It doesn't matter if we dominate in time of possession, we can still lose because our defense can't stop them (we saw this last year).

The rout we endured against the Chargers, who went 14-2 that year, Alex was hanging hecka tough against an EXTREMELY good defense and had been having a fine game until they started pulling away as they rolled over our defense with ease.

I think you're pinning WAY too much blame on Alex for our losses that year. Not even the All-Star caliber QB's have great games EVERY single game.

Big Ben is a good QB, he makes plays when needed. Alex can and does, too. In 2006, Ben threw 23 interceptions as opposed to 18 touchdowns. Even last year in their Super Bowl season, he threw only 17 TDs to 15 INTs. If he can do that, and be called "great" or even just "good" now, the put-downs on Alex should stop immediately. Alex in his first season as a 21-year old starter NOW all of a sudden has his 2900 yard, 16-16 TD-INT season looked on as bust-like, are you frickin' KIDDING ME? Bahaha.

(I'm not saying that you, specifically Joe, are doing this) but to those who are..

It's simply illogical to conclude Smith is a bust. You just can't take what you see with the timeline of events and reach that diagnosis.

05: Bad rookie year.
06. Drastic Improvement, fans pleased and excited for what's next.
07: Leads comeback in opener, wins 2 of first 3, get's hurt in game 4.
08: Shoulder not healed properly due to botched rehab by doctors. IR.

If you seriously want to consider his injured games, which some people like to write as "injured" as if he wasn't really hurt, nor was trying to compensate for his injury when throwing.. give me a break. That's like judging a sprinter running with torn ACL. Smith's tendon was completely separated from the bone.

Originally posted by BrodieFan:
Norcal9er fan makes a good point! Based on what we've seen so far, Shaun Hill should start! There, Norcal9er, do you feel better?

Shaun Hill, at this point, should indeed start.

Originally posted by OnTheClock:

Originally posted by BrodieFan:
Norcal9er fan makes a good point! Based on what we've seen so far, Shaun Hill should start! There, Norcal9er, do you feel better?

Shaun Hill, at this point, should indeed start.

Thats webzone blasphemy.

Originally posted by NinerGM:

Originally posted by WillistheWall:
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?

I know which is why I said the crack-smoking really needs to stop. Hostler = Turner, Dallas O was anything close to what we have now. Just wow.

yea its jaw dropping stupidity. and no qb was making the playoffs with a defense that was as bad as ours, not warmer or brady or hill. our oc turner was basicaly the hc of that team bc nolan wasnt gonod on offense or d. then we lost our best coach and people are going to blame the drop in production on the qb? wtf. on both sides there is some ridiculous arguments being made but now people are starting to rewrite what realy happened.

Originally posted by WillistheWall:

Originally posted by NinerGM:

Originally posted by WillistheWall:
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?

I know which is why I said the crack-smoking really needs to stop. Hostler = Turner, Dallas O was anything close to what we have now. Just wow.

yea its jaw dropping stupidity. and no qb was making the playoffs with a defense that was as bad as ours, not warmer or brady or hill. our oc turner was basicaly the hc of that team bc nolan wasnt gonod on offense or d. then we lost our best coach and people are going to blame the drop in production on the qb? wtf. on both sides there is some ridiculous arguments being made but now people are starting to rewrite what realy happened.

denial is easier then facing reality sometimes I guess

Originally posted by jones49:

Originally posted by OnTheClock:

Originally posted by BrodieFan:
Norcal9er fan makes a good point! Based on what we've seen so far, Shaun Hill should start! There, Norcal9er, do you feel better?

Shaun Hill, at this point, should indeed start.

Thats webzone blasphemy.

Hey I love all our QBs, honestly. Whoever Sing decides gives us the best chance to win, I'll support. The hope is that it'll be Alex eventually and that he proves he can be the guy so we can be set with a franchise QB for years to come, because we know Shaun Hill isn't going to be that.

Originally posted by Joecool:

Originally posted by bigmike55:
This is turning into Rise of the Alex Smith Phoenix part 2. And if it does get locked, theres going to be some other thread that starts off as a decent debatable topic, and ultimately turn into, Shaun Hill vs Alex Smith.

Well, if you want to get back to the "competition", then Hill still has the lead. Honestly, I really don't know how Hill can lose the lead. Even if he doesn't play well in preseason, he will always be considered as a "gamer" when it counts until he sucks in a game that means something. So, if he plays average in preseason and Smith plays well, then I still don't see Hill losing his job. The Rams game when he convinced Singletary to keep him in says a lot about Hill as a player to his head coach.

Yes, Hill has the job right now, which means Alex has a crap load to prove before he unseats Hill. Honestly, there is no competition. There's just a guy who Singletary trusts in starting and his backup who has "potential" but has never really shown complete mastery yet.

But but but....

He looks so great in practice and in OTA'S

He has all the physical tools and can make all the throws

Dont forget he is a nice guy so he deserves a chance




Its so comical to see the blind love Alex Leaf Lovers possess based things mentioned above that he will magically get him to start. Shaun Starts and Leaf is sits. End of story. But Im sure there will be more Alexecuses when he is not named the starter

Originally posted by 49er4eva:

Originally posted by Joecool:

Originally posted by bigmike55:
This is turning into Rise of the Alex Smith Phoenix part 2. And if it does get locked, theres going to be some other thread that starts off as a decent debatable topic, and ultimately turn into, Shaun Hill vs Alex Smith.

Well, if you want to get back to the "competition", then Hill still has the lead. Honestly, I really don't know how Hill can lose the lead. Even if he doesn't play well in preseason, he will always be considered as a "gamer" when it counts until he sucks in a game that means something. So, if he plays average in preseason and Smith plays well, then I still don't see Hill losing his job. The Rams game when he convinced Singletary to keep him in says a lot about Hill as a player to his head coach.

Yes, Hill has the job right now, which means Alex has a crap load to prove before he unseats Hill. Honestly, there is no competition. There's just a guy who Singletary trusts in starting and his backup who has "potential" but has never really shown complete mastery yet.

But but but....

He looks so great in practice and in OTA'S

He has all the physical tools and can make all the throws

Dont forget he is a nice guy so he deserves a chance




Its so comical to see the blind love Alex Leaf Lovers possess based things mentioned above that he will magically get him to start. Shaun Starts and Leaf is sits. End of story. But Im sure there will be more Alexecuses when he is not named the starter

And I'm sure you'll be there to point and laugh at fellow Niner fans who simply hate to admit we wasted a #1 draft pick. Enjoy!

Originally posted by SonocoNinerFan:

Originally posted by 49er4eva:

Originally posted by Joecool:

Originally posted by bigmike55:
This is turning into Rise of the Alex Smith Phoenix part 2. And if it does get locked, theres going to be some other thread that starts off as a decent debatable topic, and ultimately turn into, Shaun Hill vs Alex Smith.

Well, if you want to get back to the "competition", then Hill still has the lead. Honestly, I really don't know how Hill can lose the lead. Even if he doesn't play well in preseason, he will always be considered as a "gamer" when it counts until he sucks in a game that means something. So, if he plays average in preseason and Smith plays well, then I still don't see Hill losing his job. The Rams game when he convinced Singletary to keep him in says a lot about Hill as a player to his head coach.

Yes, Hill has the job right now, which means Alex has a crap load to prove before he unseats Hill. Honestly, there is no competition. There's just a guy who Singletary trusts in starting and his backup who has "potential" but has never really shown complete mastery yet.

But but but....

He looks so great in practice and in OTA'S

He has all the physical tools and can make all the throws

Dont forget he is a nice guy so he deserves a chance




Its so comical to see the blind love Alex Leaf Lovers possess based things mentioned above that he will magically get him to start. Shaun Starts and Leaf is sits. End of story. But Im sure there will be more Alexecuses when he is not named the starter

And I'm sure you'll be there to point and laugh at fellow Niner fans who simply hate to admit we wasted a #1 draft pick. Enjoy!

Call me crazy but i think the first top 5 picks were a waste. I think pick 6 has work out the best.

Originally posted by OnTheClock:

Originally posted by Joecool:

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.

Are you sure it was the QB and not just our entire team, especially a horrible defense, that "could barely do anything" ? -- It doesn't matter if we dominate in time of possession, we can still lose because our defense can't stop them (we saw this last year).

The rout we endured against the Chargers, who went 14-2 that year, Alex was hanging hecka tough against an EXTREMELY good defense and had been having a fine game until they started pulling away as they rolled over our defense with ease.

I think you're pinning WAY too much blame on Alex for our losses that year. Not even the All-Star caliber QB's have great games EVERY single game.

Big Ben is a good QB, he makes plays when needed. Alex can and does, too. In 2006, Ben threw 23 interceptions as opposed to 18 touchdowns. Even last year in their Super Bowl season, he threw only 17 TDs to 15 INTs. If he can do that, and be called "great" or even just "good" now, the put-downs on Alex should stop immediately. Alex in his first season as a 21-year old starter NOW all of a sudden has his 2900 yard, 16-16 TD-INT season looked on as bust-like, are you frickin' KIDDING ME? Bahaha.

(I'm not saying that you, specifically Joe, are doing this) but to those who are..

It's simply illogical to conclude Smith is a bust. You just can't take what you see with the timeline of events and reach that diagnosis.

05: Bad rookie year.
06. Drastic Improvement, fans pleased and excited for what's next.
07: Leads comeback in opener, wins 2 of first 3, get's hurt in game 4.
08: Shoulder not healed properly due to botched rehab by doctors. IR.

If you seriously want to consider his injured games, which some people like to write as "injured" as if he wasn't really hurt, nor was trying to compensate for his injury when throwing.. give me a break. That's like judging a sprinter running with torn ACL. Smith's tendon was completely separated from the bone.

I like how BigMike nor 49er4eva NEVER respond articulately to posts like this.

If I get a warning for calling them out so be it. Its just ridiculous. Posters like that ruin Niner Talk and ruin mature discussion on the Zone in general. As someone who's been here longer than they have, I feel I have a right to call them out.

I really, just want to see a well argued response to OTC's post above by one of those guys. Thats all I'm asking.

Originally posted by OnTheClock:

Originally posted by jones49:

Originally posted by OnTheClock:

Originally posted by BrodieFan:
Norcal9er fan makes a good point! Based on what we've seen so far, Shaun Hill should start! There, Norcal9er, do you feel better?

Shaun Hill, at this point, should indeed start.

Thats webzone blasphemy.

Hey I love all our QBs, honestly. Whoever Sing decides gives us the best chance to win, I'll support. The hope is that it'll be Alex eventually and that he proves he can be the guy so we can be set with a franchise QB for years to come, because we know Shaun Hill isn't going to be that.

No way of knowing that, you could pretty much say that about any QB.