Was That Alex Smith's finest half, last Sunday

I hope this doesn't get locked as it is an honest question. It was the best I have seen. The only 49er game I missed in the last 15 years was his game against the Seahawks
in December 2006, I was in a hotel room in Virginia that had no NFL Network. A lot of zoners cite that as his finest hour. I could not imagine him playing better than he did against the Texans. I am hoping last Sunday was his best, as that would mean he went beyond what he was previously capable of. I "was" one of the biggest Smith bashers here, I am on the Alex Smith bandwagon now, for the first time. And no, I was never a Shaun Hill supporter.

easily his finest game thus far.

He has, of course, had better 4th quarter winning drives, but as a whole, that is by far the best I have seen Alex Smith play. My only complaints were the following:

1. The one short pass that I saw him throw, he missed (probably was better that he missed it, but still makes you wonder)
2. Lots of delay of game penalties. Hopefully being the starter will mitigate that in the future (it wouldn't surprise me if Crabtree was guilty of illegal substitution, but that is just me guessing)

#2 should be easily corrected. #1 is an area that we will continue to have to watch as fans. But if he just continues to throw down the field, and ignores the short passes, I don't think we will care that much. (:

Sure would be nice to think there is more of the same to come. We need it!

Originally posted by fryet:
He has, of course, had better 4th quarter winning drives, but as a whole, that is by far the best I have seen Alex Smith play. My only complaints were the following:

1. The one short pass that I saw him throw, he missed (probably was better that he missed it, but still makes you wonder)2. Lots of delay of game penalties. Hopefully being the starter will mitigate that in the future (it wouldn't surprise me if Crabtree was guilty of illegal substitution, but that is just me guessing)

#2 should be easily corrected. #1 is an area that we will continue to have to watch as fans. But if he just continues to throw down the field, and ignores the short passes, I don't think we will care that much. (:

He missed that because Gore was running to the sideline and Smith threw it to try and lead gore up field. It was a prety good pass, but you can see Smith after telling gore to run upfield. Just a matter of him getting to play with the other guys.

yup

Originally posted by pd24:

Originally posted by fryet:
He has, of course, had better 4th quarter winning drives, but as a whole, that is by far the best I have seen Alex Smith play. My only complaints were the following:

1. The one short pass that I saw him throw, he missed (probably was better that he missed it, but still makes you wonder)2. Lots of delay of game penalties. Hopefully being the starter will mitigate that in the future (it wouldn't surprise me if Crabtree was guilty of illegal substitution, but that is just me guessing)

#2 should be easily corrected. #1 is an area that we will continue to have to watch as fans. But if he just continues to throw down the field, and ignores the short passes, I don't think we will care that much. (:

He missed that because Gore was running to the sideline and Smith threw it to try and lead gore up field. It was a prety good pass, but you can see Smith after telling gore to run upfield. Just a matter of him getting to play with the other guys.

Wrong...he missed it on purpose. He knew Gore would get tackled and there was pressure so he threw it short and save the time. Extremely heads up play on Smiths part. He only threw it out there to avoid intentional grounding.

Who said no....What other game has Smith ever looked so good? Maybe it's been awhile and I can't recall, but he's only thrown 3 TD passes once (against OAK) and that was in a full game, not 1 half, while not practicing with the 1st team.

Originally posted by BobS:
I hope this doesn't get locked as it is an honest question. It was the best I have seen. The only 49er game I missed in the last 15 years was his game against the Seahawks
in December 2006, I was in a hotel room in Virginia that had no NFL Network. A lot of zoners cite that as his finest hour. I could not imagine him playing better than he did against the Texans. I am hoping last Sunday was his best, as that would mean he went beyond what he was previously capable of. I "was" one of the biggest Smith bashers here, I am on the Alex Smith bandwagon now, for the first time. And no, I was never a Shaun Hill supporter.

Bob it was easily Smith's best performance to date.

Originally posted by pd24:

Originally posted by fryet:
He has, of course, had better 4th quarter winning drives, but as a whole, that is by far the best I have seen Alex Smith play. My only complaints were the following:

1. The one short pass that I saw him throw, he missed (probably was better that he missed it, but still makes you wonder)2. Lots of delay of game penalties. Hopefully being the starter will mitigate that in the future (it wouldn't surprise me if Crabtree was guilty of illegal substitution, but that is just me guessing)

#2 should be easily corrected. #1 is an area that we will continue to have to watch as fans. But if he just continues to throw down the field, and ignores the short passes, I don't think we will care that much. (:

He missed that because Gore was running to the sideline and Smith threw it to try and lead gore up field. It was a prety good pass, but you can see Smith after telling gore to run upfield. Just a matter of him getting to play with the other guys.

Yeah i was gonna say the same thing, cuz right after that pass, when gore turned around, you saw Smith make the movement with his hand, thinking Gore was gonna keep running.

Lets hope there are more performances like this for Smith. Our team is a good team, our missing piece is the QB. We all saw that Sunday, everyone wants to use our O LINE as a scapegoat but the real missing piece is a FRANCHISE QB. He was our #1 pick and all I want is him to succeed.

Originally posted by WINiner:

Originally posted by pd24:

Originally posted by fryet:
He has, of course, had better 4th quarter winning drives, but as a whole, that is by far the best I have seen Alex Smith play. My only complaints were the following:

1. The one short pass that I saw him throw, he missed (probably was better that he missed it, but still makes you wonder)2. Lots of delay of game penalties. Hopefully being the starter will mitigate that in the future (it wouldn't surprise me if Crabtree was guilty of illegal substitution, but that is just me guessing)

#2 should be easily corrected. #1 is an area that we will continue to have to watch as fans. But if he just continues to throw down the field, and ignores the short passes, I don't think we will care that much. (:

He missed that because Gore was running to the sideline and Smith threw it to try and lead gore up field. It was a prety good pass, but you can see Smith after telling gore to run upfield. Just a matter of him getting to play with the other guys.

Wrong...he missed it on purpose. He knew Gore would get tackled and there was pressure so he threw it short and save the time. Extremely heads up play on Smiths part. He only threw it out there to avoid intentional grounding.

So you didn't see Smith motion to Gore that he should run up the field? And Gore was close enough to get out of bounds, so it wasn't a throw away, don't belive everything those FOX guys throw around.

Originally posted by pd24:

Originally posted by WINiner:

Originally posted by pd24:

Originally posted by fryet:
He has, of course, had better 4th quarter winning drives, but as a whole, that is by far the best I have seen Alex Smith play. My only complaints were the following:

1. The one short pass that I saw him throw, he missed (probably was better that he missed it, but still makes you wonder)2. Lots of delay of game penalties. Hopefully being the starter will mitigate that in the future (it wouldn't surprise me if Crabtree was guilty of illegal substitution, but that is just me guessing)

#2 should be easily corrected. #1 is an area that we will continue to have to watch as fans. But if he just continues to throw down the field, and ignores the short passes, I don't think we will care that much. (:

He missed that because Gore was running to the sideline and Smith threw it to try and lead gore up field. It was a prety good pass, but you can see Smith after telling gore to run upfield. Just a matter of him getting to play with the other guys.

Wrong...he missed it on purpose. He knew Gore would get tackled and there was pressure so he threw it short and save the time. Extremely heads up play on Smiths part. He only threw it out there to avoid intentional grounding.

So you didn't see Smith motion to Gore that he should run up the field? And Gore was close enough to get out of bounds, so it wasn't a throw away, don't belive everything those FOX guys throw around.

The first time I saw that play I thought that he just overthrew Gore; ya he was signaling for Gore to run up field. If Gore would've kept running, it looked like Alex was throwing a perfect pass right over the DB head, and would've led Gore perfectly, with room to run.

Originally posted by fryet:
He has, of course, had better 4th quarter winning drives, but as a whole, that is by far the best I have seen Alex Smith play. My only complaints were the following:

1. The one short pass that I saw him throw, he missed (probably was better that he missed it, but still makes you wonder)
2. Lots of delay of game penalties. Hopefully being the starter will mitigate that in the future (it wouldn't surprise me if Crabtree was guilty of illegal substitution, but that is just me guessing)

#2 should be easily corrected. #1 is an area that we will continue to have to watch as fans. But if he just continues to throw down the field, and ignores the short passes, I don't think we will care that much. (:

I've never really been impressed with Smith, until yesterday. He didn't even look like the same player to me. He showed me more in his first drive than I've seen in all of his playing time combined.

I rewatched the second half of the game this morning and the penalties weren't actually that bad. That first one was probably just nerves. The second, where he just walked off the field, was actually a problem with the personnel (too many on the field, I believe) and we would've taken a penalty anyway. It seems like Brian Billick gave an explanation for the one in the 4th also. The constant formation changes probably played a role as well.

One of the timeouts he called was a great heads-up play. Vernon was confused and Smith called the TO just before the ball was snapped, which actually hit Vernon while he was motioning. Had he not called it, Cushing would've scored a TD on the fumble recovery.

He also drew 3 offsides penalties on the opening drive of the 3rd. The third one was declined on the Vernon TD. His snap count seemed to really slow down Houston's pass rush.

I was looking at his individual stats on yahoo sports.....

But correct if I'm wrong, he's only thrown for 3 TDs in a game, once prior to Sunday: in 2006 against OAK.

He threw for 3 TDs in one half of course against the Texans.