Originally posted by Method:
You guys are still not listening to the interview.
Steve never said Smith is like Leinart, he brought up Leinart as an example of a slow-speed QB to help him demonstrate the difference of his earlier comment of high-gear QB story with Montana. He then said, "you can see Alex can get through 4th gear. This is the year that we'll see if Alex can shift into high gear," which shows that he already thinks Smith is much better then Leinart. Hopefully Smith can hit that high gear.
The mistranslation happens cause Steve didn't take a breath talking about Alex and then going right into Lienart. I read Sando's take and that just didn't sound like Steve imho, cause it was all over the map in translation. In the past Steve had been openly critical of Alex, but not in a condemning way. He was as on the fence about the kid as a lot of fans have been.
But this time he's giving Smith some respect in saying that he thinks that Smith can be that guy. The guy that we all wanted him to be back when he was drafted. And of note, he did say that with some guys it just takes time. Hopefully he does succeed. It would be a waste if he failed and we didn't take this Division when it's ripe for the taking.
Thanks for digging that up Method cause I just red the NFCWest blog on ESPN and was about to go to the source, to see if that's what he really said or if Sando was being obtuse. Glad it's the latter.
~Ceadder