How do you think Alex Smith did today?

Originally posted by Leathaface:
Before his injury, Alex couldn't throw to WRs. He would simply look for a TE or go to the check-down RB. Norv Turner did a good job of making him look decent in 2006 but if you look at that season closely, you'll see that he played his best football in the first quarter of that season. He was HORRID the rest of that year. What I'm saying is, there's no way he isn't better than pre-injury. I've been the biggest Alex "hater" there is but there's no question in my mind he's gotten better. The passes we see to Bruce/Crabtree would never have happened in the past. He would simply not trust his offense or arm enough to make the play.

As for the play-calling, I agree 100%. We're not playing to his strengths enough. Unfortunately, Raye's stranglehold on the offense won't be loosened since I don't see any way Sing does that to him.

The thing that I noticed about Alex that's different is he's going through his progressions in the pocket instead of staring at one dude and then taking off to his right, throwing it out of bounds.

I think if Crabtree wasn't able to catch that ball he shouldn't have tipped it up either, because it would have just landed 10 yards behind him somewhere instead of being picked.

Smith played well, IMO. A few overthrows, but nothing terrible. What impresses me the most about Smith is his new-found pocket presence. He used to look nervous as hell back there, but now goes through his reads and makes good decisions. The two-minute drill was beautiful. He looks like a totally different player, like the guy he was supposed to be when we made him a no. 1 pick.

I think Smith's biggest effect has been on the OL. They're protecting better now that he's back there. Hill was so limited that the DL and LBs would just tee-off on every play, run or pass. Now that we have a QB who can make the D pay, the OL isn't overwhelmed with rushers on every play.



Now if we could only work on that playcalling.

Alex did just fine. The playcalling in certain situations was not! Get Smith into a rythm and use the pass to set up Frank's big runs. If the coaching staff can stop being stubborn and make those sutle changes then we will win the west!

It is rather alarming that Smith's own OC is sabotaging him more than the other team's DC is.

Under the circumstances, Smith did very well. He would have done far better in a rational offense. Gore, the receivers, the OL, the defense...all would have done better.

We may now have an offense that is better than the OC, and far beyond the odd vision Sing has about it.

A solid B from me for Smith and a D for the coaching. At some point, after a few more frustrating games he is going to have to stop listening to the babble on his headset and call some of his own plays. You have to think the players would love him for that.

SMITH LOOKED PRETTY GOOD TO ME HE MISSED A COUPLE OF PASSES BUT ALSO BRUCE DOESNT LOOK LIKE HIMSELF I THINK HE SHOULD BE BENCHED LIKE SOMEONE SAID EARLIER... MORGAN CRABTREE AND JONES THEY SHOULD GIVE IT A TRY!!!!! LETS GO NINERS BACK AT HOME LETS START WINNING

Originally posted by nj49erfan:
I think some of you are pretty rediculous. The kid hasn't started in over two years and almost beats the Colts, who by the way have the 5th best passing defense in the league. Also completes about 60% of his passes working behind a backup left and right tackle. Lets be honest, is he a top 5 or 10 QB right now? Absolutley not. Did he play the best game I have seen since Norv Turner was here? Absolutley. Finally starting to see the potential in him that I have never seen. Him and Crabtree got something good going.

Alex has a future in SF. Some of you who just hate him for the past need to get over it and start supporting this kid. He played a solid football game today and I feel its only going to get better from here on out.

With that said Mr. Raye needs to either change his thinking or get the hell out of here. When Alex completed a pass on 1st down Gore was chewing up 5 to 8 yards a carry. When we ran 1st and 2nd down he was averaging about 2. Open up the air game and Gore will break a 50 yarder every week. Oh yeah and can we once, just once send someone deep down the field? Seriously would it kill us to send someone on an go route once? Do we not do that or do we just not have enough pass protection for someone to get 20 yards down the field?

Alex is no longer a rookie in this league. His stats and performance were very mediocre and what you would expect from Hill. I think that it is too soon to judge his future here, but if today's performance is indicative of what is to be expected, then his future with the team will be that of a back-up.

Those plays to run the ball and formations are needed. They prevent the defense from pinning its ears back against a weak line and every now and then, Gore will break one. However, Alex was not back there running for his life. He had adequate time and simply did not even seem to try to avoid a couple of those sacks. Although his pocket presence has improved, I don't get the feeling that he believes that he is a leader; at least not yet.

There is no way that an objective observer can give him a grade higher than a C. I'm sorry, throwing the ball over 30 times while netting less than 200 yards with 1 td and 1 interception and AGAIN causing a delay of game penalty at a crucial time in the game does not impress me.

[ Edited by ttime1 on Nov 1, 2009 at 17:27:11 ]

Smith has drastically improved since his rookie season, and he will continue to look better. It's arguable if he did enough in this game to earn a W, but I think I'm sold that he gives us a better chance of winning that Hill.

Originally posted by ttime1:

Originally posted by nj49erfan:
I think some of you are pretty rediculous. The kid hasn't started in over two years and almost beats the Colts, who by the way have the 5th best passing defense in the league. Also completes about 60% of his passes working behind a backup left and right tackle. Lets be honest, is he a top 5 or 10 QB right now? Absolutley not. Did he play the best game I have seen since Norv Turner was here? Absolutley. Finally starting to see the potential in him that I have never seen. Him and Crabtree got something good going.

Alex has a future in SF. Some of you who just hate him for the past need to get over it and start supporting this kid. He played a solid football game today and I feel its only going to get better from here on out.

With that said Mr. Raye needs to either change his thinking or get the hell out of here. When Alex completed a pass on 1st down Gore was chewing up 5 to 8 yards a carry. When we ran 1st and 2nd down he was averaging about 2. Open up the air game and Gore will break a 50 yarder every week. Oh yeah and can we once, just once send someone deep down the field? Seriously would it kill us to send someone on an go route once? Do we not do that or do we just not have enough pass protection for someone to get 20 yards down the field?

Alex is no longer a rookie in this league. His stats and performance were very mediocre and what you would expect from Hill. I think that it is too soon to judge his future here, but if today's performance is indicative of what is to be expected, then his future with the team will be that of a back-up.

Those plays to run the ball and formations are needed. They prevent the defense from pinning its ears back against a weak line and every now and then, Gore will break one. However, Alex was not back there running for his life. He had adequate time and simply did not even seem to try to avoid a couple of those sacks. Although his pocket presence has improved, I don't get the feeling that he believes that he is a leader; at least not yet.

There is no way that an objective observer can give him a grade higher than a C. I'm sorry, throwing the ball over 30 times while netting less than 200 yards with 1 td and 1 interception and AGAIN causing a delay of game penalty at a crucial time in the game does not impress me.

the playcalling was against him. he led that TD drive like a seasoned vet and then its back to jimmy raye and singletary's bulls**t offense in the 2nd half. alex plays good when were in a fast paced spread out offense. why fight it? we have good speed at WR and TE and a RB that can catch and bust big runs. why not leave smith in a 3 or 4 receiver set as the base offense? leave him in the shotgun, when he was in the shotgun formation he got the ball out before the rushers could disrupt him and our beat up o-line didnt have to do anything special. good coaches play to their players strengths, not to their stubborn ideas when they obviously dont work. Gore was actually getting good yardage on that TD drive because of smith opening up the feild with his receivers. they cant be blind, they have to see that Smith does well in that setting and they need to stick with it

Alex has turned a corner. That was a pretty good defense and he played pretty well. He looks calm and decisive. As has been stated ad nauseum, we need to open it up a bit to play to our strengths, which now appears to be the passing game. Funny turn of events. I am not too down. Three of our losses were against high quality opponents. A few plays go our way and we could have beat both the Vikes and the Colts. We're close. Raye needs to open it up, we need to jump out to leads against inferior opponents and suffocate them with our defense.

I thought he played well, esspecially considering he did not have much of a running game and on 3rd downs did not have very good protection.

I think we have our quarterback.

I give him a B. A handful of boneheaded throws but hes gonna do that. Overall I was happy with his performance.

Originally posted by ttime1:

Originally posted by nj49erfan:
I think some of you are pretty rediculous. The kid hasn't started in over two years and almost beats the Colts, who by the way have the 5th best passing defense in the league. Also completes about 60% of his passes working behind a backup left and right tackle. Lets be honest, is he a top 5 or 10 QB right now? Absolutley not. Did he play the best game I have seen since Norv Turner was here? Absolutley. Finally starting to see the potential in him that I have never seen. Him and Crabtree got something good going.

Alex has a future in SF. Some of you who just hate him for the past need to get over it and start supporting this kid. He played a solid football game today and I feel its only going to get better from here on out.

With that said Mr. Raye needs to either change his thinking or get the hell out of here. When Alex completed a pass on 1st down Gore was chewing up 5 to 8 yards a carry. When we ran 1st and 2nd down he was averaging about 2. Open up the air game and Gore will break a 50 yarder every week. Oh yeah and can we once, just once send someone deep down the field? Seriously would it kill us to send someone on an go route once? Do we not do that or do we just not have enough pass protection for someone to get 20 yards down the field?

Alex is no longer a rookie in this league. His stats and performance were very mediocre and what you would expect from Hill. I think that it is too soon to judge his future here, but if today's performance is indicative of what is to be expected, then his future with the team will be that of a back-up.

Those plays to run the ball and formations are needed. They prevent the defense from pinning its ears back against a weak line and every now and then, Gore will break one. However, Alex was not back there running for his life. He had adequate time and simply did not even seem to try to avoid a couple of those sacks. Although his pocket presence has improved, I don't get the feeling that he believes that he is a leader; at least not yet.

There is no way that an objective observer can give him a grade higher than a C. I'm sorry, throwing the ball over 30 times while netting less than 200 yards with 1 td and 1 interception and AGAIN causing a delay of game penalty at a crucial time in the game does not impress me.

I'm more impressed with Alex in 1 1/2 games than I've been with Hill all year.Definitely an upgrade over Hill and will get better if Raye goes to a spread offense more often(his strength).

He obviously didn't do enough to win, but you can say that about the whole team. Going into this game I was worried that Smith might have more than 2 int and put the chance of the team winning out the door but I think he did pretty good. Made some good throws for the most part. Just disappointed that we had a VERY good chance of making an upset, but couldn't mustered another score to win. I think the D holding Manning to 18 pts without a TD is borderline amazing. We made it a respectable game, even though it's a loss.

I feel good with Smith at qb for the rest of the season after this performance. There were some very nice throws to Crabtree and Co. that I have not seen in a Niner qb in a long time

Originally posted by Afrikan:

Originally posted by Super5:

Originally posted by Afrikan:
I see alot of posts consisting "Greats" and alot of "Very Well" as far as how he played today....

I don't agree with this at all... I think he did fine but needs to improve... he is playing like how he played before getting injured....which isn't necessary a good thing....

alot on here wanted to blame that INT on Crabtree but that was not the case.... Alex threw it high and away......Alex can get away with this as far as passes to the side line....but when throwing it in the middle of the field he needs to either be accurate or miss low....

and there was another pass that was an INT that was dropped by the cb....

so besides these passes...... Isaac Bruce let him down, dropped very easy catchable passes....and of course, imo, Raye let him down by not letting him get into rythem....this is one thing have been complaining for most of the season with Hill back there.....the playcalling doesn't really give our QB chances to get into rythem.... I believe that WildCat on 2nd down was a wasted play....and that 2nd down inside hand off to Norris of all people on 2nd and 10 WTF???

but back to Alex... this is one thing that drives me crazy...which I don't understand... he made some PERFECT throws...hooked up well with Crabtree for some first down.....but after hitting perfect passes....he can be TOTALLY off...and he does this in the middle of the field..the worst place to do so.

and of course those delay of game penalties are killing us....he should have been paying attention or if the playcall came in late he should have called time out... it went from being 3rd 7 to 3rd 11 on that crucial drive......

but yeah the Playcalling is what frustrates me...the formations we use....like someone else has mentioned, even when we come out in Shogun, Gore was still able to get some good yardage on a play.....we have to spread the defense out...and let Alex look at everything and decide early what he needs to do....when everyone is bunched in together and our Oline has let our QBs down on simple blocking assignments it makes a QB's job that much harder to try and read what a defense is going to do.......for as much as we run it.... I don't remember seeing one playaction rollout...or bootleg... I don't get it.......also not one deep pass attempt...why is this?

some on here need to be prepared for the reality of what is going to happen next week.....although most on here feel Alex played Very Well....next weeks game is going to be at the Stick...and the home fans have had no problem booing him after one series in the past...mainly because of having to pay to see him and our offenses struggle in the past.......so Alex needs to play efficient....Bruce needs to do his job...the oline will need to do their job...but more importantly Raye is going to have to do his job by putting Alex in the situation to make our offense successful.....or else it is going to get ugly at the stick....even if the game is close... we can't turn the ball over in the middle of the field like today.

You're absolutely wrong he looks the same as before- he's much better in the 1 and 1/2 games he's played so far than in the past.


"after hitting perfect passes he can be totally off"-you're too ticky tack and critical,no QB is going to be johnny on the spot all the time.Super Manning himself was off in the first half today.

Alex Smith's numbers today were okay but not horrible

Super...are you saying that I'm being too ticky tacky and critical....no QB is going to be Johnny on the spot all the time??? I wish you felt this way yourself earlier this season.

but like I said before the season started....before preseason....and when he came in last week.... I don't expect him to be perfect....but I don't want him to be inaccurate on passes over the middle.....I don't care who our QB is.... this is a no no...... I don't know if it is mechanics or what....but that pass over the middle is just not acceptable....mainly when we are playing the Colts, we can't give them turnovers..... if he cuts down on those kind of passes he can be such a better QB and fans would not still question him.

Or we can just go back to Shaun Hill

Wait,no that would be a downgrade j/k


I know critics like yourself will scrutinize every snap he takes and type big paragraphs about but I'd say lets see what he can do for a few games.If Mr.Raye can cut out the vanilla and go spread offense I'm willing to bet you will not be disappointed

proved yet again that he is perfectly capable of being an important part of this offense, and it ends there. If the win or loss comes down to Alex Smith, 9 times out of 10 you are going to get the loss.