Reason why we lost the first 5 games???

Originally posted by niner4life21:

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:

Originally posted by niner4life21:

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:
Tougher schedule.

Look at it. Those are some of the toughest games we played this year. Now all the softballs are lined up and home games. Those were away games and some home vs. real tough teams. Nothing like the current schedule.

True. I wish the schedule makers would spread out the games better...3 out of the first 4 on the road, 2 at the loudest stadiums in the league? Home game against the World Champs?

Some of the absolute toughest games we played were the first 5. It was road games and home vs. very tough teams. Even Alex would beat a lot of the current games on the schedule. Not saying he is the answer. But Troy Smith is an illusion IMO based on softball schedule. Alex was 8 - 8 last year. He wouldn't lose them all. He wins the easy ones. Troy would lose a lot of the first 5 if not all of them.

Smith wasn't 8-8 last year. He was I think 5-5. Lol. I don't think he coulda beat the rams last week.

5-5 projects out to 8-8 over a full season... People act like we would be 0 - 16 but we would not. The toughest 5 games on our schedule were the first 5.

He certainly could beat the Rams. He did last year.

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:

Originally posted by niner4life21:

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:
Tougher schedule.

Look at it. Those are some of the toughest games we played this year. Now all the softballs are lined up and home games. Those were away games and some home vs. real tough teams. Nothing like the current schedule.

True. I wish the schedule makers would spread out the games better...3 out of the first 4 on the road, 2 at the loudest stadiums in the league? Home game against the World Champs?

Some of the absolute toughest games we played were the first 5. It was road games and home vs. very tough teams. Even Alex would beat a lot of the current games on the schedule. Not saying he is the answer. But Troy Smith is an illusion IMO based on softball schedule. Alex was 8 - 8 last year. He wouldn't lose them all. He wins the easy ones. Troy would lose a lot of the first 5 if not all of them.

I love Troy Smith, and nobody is happier he is getting a chance to start, as a Buckeye's fan who has followed him since his high school years. But, we need to be realistic about how good he is. The performance against the Rams is an illusion. He is simply not THAT good. Can he manage the game well? Yes. Is he intelligent and have a strong arm? Yes. Is he is leader? Absolutely. Is he is starter in this league? I'm not so sure. Is he a guy who is going to have a QB rating well over 100 on any sort of regular basis? Absolutely not.

The bottom line is that through three quarters of the Broncos game, Smith was pretty mediocre, and if the crazy pass Walker catches that was up for grabs is not made, then we probably lose in London.

This past week, the Rams secondary was flat out bad. We are just not going to see a group play that poorly again.

The majority of the board is up for a rude awakening when Troy Smith returns to being Troy Smith soon, an average to below average starting QB, not the John Elway version we saw last week. The expectations are way too high, unfairly too high on him.

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:

Originally posted by niner4life21:

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:

Originally posted by niner4life21:

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:
Tougher schedule.

Look at it. Those are some of the toughest games we played this year. Now all the softballs are lined up and home games. Those were away games and some home vs. real tough teams. Nothing like the current schedule.

True. I wish the schedule makers would spread out the games better...3 out of the first 4 on the road, 2 at the loudest stadiums in the league? Home game against the World Champs?

Some of the absolute toughest games we played were the first 5. It was road games and home vs. very tough teams. Even Alex would beat a lot of the current games on the schedule. Not saying he is the answer. But Troy Smith is an illusion IMO based on softball schedule. Alex was 8 - 8 last year. He wouldn't lose them all. He wins the easy ones. Troy would lose a lot of the first 5 if not all of them.

Smith wasn't 8-8 last year. He was I think 5-5. Lol. I don't think he coulda beat the rams last week.

5-5 projects out to 8-8 over a full season... People act like we would be 0 - 16 but we would not. The toughest 5 games on our schedule were the first 5.

He certainly could beat the Rams. He did last year.

Haha this is the only time I've seen you not bashing anyone on the team. But still, I doubt he'd beat the Rams simply b/c we did well in the passing game because Troy threw deep and took chances, something Alex does not do. Plus, I think in that situation of 3rd and 32, he would have folded like a piece of paper.

Originally posted by niner4life21:

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:

Originally posted by niner4life21:

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:

Originally posted by niner4life21:

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:
Tougher schedule.

Look at it. Those are some of the toughest games we played this year. Now all the softballs are lined up and home games. Those were away games and some home vs. real tough teams. Nothing like the current schedule.

True. I wish the schedule makers would spread out the games better...3 out of the first 4 on the road, 2 at the loudest stadiums in the league? Home game against the World Champs?

Some of the absolute toughest games we played were the first 5. It was road games and home vs. very tough teams. Even Alex would beat a lot of the current games on the schedule. Not saying he is the answer. But Troy Smith is an illusion IMO based on softball schedule. Alex was 8 - 8 last year. He wouldn't lose them all. He wins the easy ones. Troy would lose a lot of the first 5 if not all of them.

Smith wasn't 8-8 last year. He was I think 5-5. Lol. I don't think he coulda beat the rams last week.

How could Alex win last week if we barely won with 351 yards passing?

5-5 projects out to 8-8 over a full season... People act like we would be 0 - 16 but we would not. The toughest 5 games on our schedule were the first 5.

He certainly could beat the Rams. He did last year.

Haha this is the only time I've seen you not bashing anyone on the team. But still, I doubt he'd beat the Rams simply b/c we did well in the passing game because Troy threw deep and took chances, something Alex does not do. Plus, I think in that situation of 3rd and 32, he would have folded like a piece of paper.

Originally posted by MadDog49er:

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:

Originally posted by niner4life21:

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:
Tougher schedule.

Look at it. Those are some of the toughest games we played this year. Now all the softballs are lined up and home games. Those were away games and some home vs. real tough teams. Nothing like the current schedule.

True. I wish the schedule makers would spread out the games better...3 out of the first 4 on the road, 2 at the loudest stadiums in the league? Home game against the World Champs?

Some of the absolute toughest games we played were the first 5. It was road games and home vs. very tough teams. Even Alex would beat a lot of the current games on the schedule. Not saying he is the answer. But Troy Smith is an illusion IMO based on softball schedule. Alex was 8 - 8 last year. He wouldn't lose them all. He wins the easy ones. Troy would lose a lot of the first 5 if not all of them.

I love Troy Smith, and nobody is happier he is getting a chance to start, as a Buckeye's fan who has followed him since his high school years. But, we need to be realistic about how good he is. The performance against the Rams is an illusion. He is simply not THAT good. Can he manage the game well? Yes. Is he intelligent and have a strong arm? Yes. Is he is leader? Absolutely. Is he is starter in this league? I'm not so sure. Is he a guy who is going to have a QB rating well over 100 on any sort of regular basis? Absolutely not.

The bottom line is that through three quarters of the Broncos game, Smith was pretty mediocre, and if the crazy pass Walker catches that was up for grabs is not made, then we probably lose in London.

This past week, the Rams secondary was flat out bad. We are just not going to see a group play that poorly again.

The majority of the board is up for a rude awakening when Troy Smith returns to being Troy Smith soon, an average to below average starting QB, not the John Elway version we saw last week. The expectations are way too high, unfairly too high on him.

I understand what you're saying, but the reason he played 'bad' through the first 3 quarters in London was b/c he got like 10 attempts in that time period. Now, I'm not trying to make excuses, but theres no way a QB who hasn't played in almost 2 years can get into a rhythm without being allowed to get in a groove.

Body language tells a story, Alex Smith appeared to be cool but when things went bad you could see the shrug of the shoulders and the head turned down. He had the ability to change that perception but he is now the victim. The first game against Seattle when the team came out flatter than a pancake set the tone that coach Sing was over his head as motivator and coach when confronted against a real coach in Pete Carrol.

Originally posted by global_nomad:
IF Alex would have cut his turnovers by half we would have won at least 2 more games. Getting injured is the only reason Alex isn't still leading the league in turnovers.

Say what you want about Raye, but it was more Alex's fault that we lost the 1st game. The plays were there to be made but his inaccuracy on the high pass to Morgan and the pass to Norris really cost us the game in the first half.

Don't want to turn this into an Alex Smith thread, but you can't put all those turnovers on Alex Smith. Some of them were the result of Crabtree not being on the same page and also tipping passes. Crabtree turned it around after a terrible start and is now arguably our most reliable receiver. However, there was a point that he was killing this team with his mistakes.

Alex Smith also was towards the top of the league in pass attempts. A more important statistic in turnovers is how many you have per attempt. Let's test your theory that Alex would still be leading the league in turnovers (interceptions and fumbles lost) had he remained the starter:


Pass Attempts Per Turnover

Alex Smith: 24.2


Matt Moore: 11.92

Brett Favre: 13.76

Eli Manning: 18.76

Jay Cutler: 18.92

David Garrard: 20

Derek Anderson: 22.6

Alex wasn't as bad as you're making him out to be. Was he good enough? Nope. Just don't blame it all on him. Especially considering he had gone a game and a half without a turnover before he was injured.

Originally posted by MadDog49er:
Once again, the board shows a total lack of intelligence. Anyone who blames Alex Smith more than Mike Singletary simply does not understand the game, period.

The total lack of organization, structure, communication problems, argument on what style of offense to play, player personnel issues....this falls on Alex? Come on, people, grow a brain cell.

Alex Smith did not have a great, or even good first 5 games. But, he is one element in the chaos of this team, with a head coach who simply does not know what he is doing. To assign blame on him for being the main cause of our bad start is simply naive.

Originally posted by Wodwo:

Originally posted by global_nomad:
IF Alex would have cut his turnovers by half we would have won at least 2 more games. Getting injured is the only reason Alex isn't still leading the league in turnovers.

Say what you want about Raye, but it was more Alex's fault that we lost the 1st game. The plays were there to be made but his inaccuracy on the high pass to Morgan and the pass to Norris really cost us the game in the first half.

Don't want to turn this into an Alex Smith thread, but you can't put all those turnovers on Alex Smith. Some of them were the result of Crabtree not being on the same page and also tipping passes. Crabtree turned it around after a terrible start and is now arguably our most reliable receiver. However, there was a point that he was killing this team with his mistakes.

Alex Smith also was towards the top of the league in pass attempts. A more important statistic in turnovers is how many you have per attempt. Let's test your theory that Alex would still be leading the league in turnovers (interceptions and fumbles lost) had he remained the starter:


Pass Attempts Per Turnover

Alex Smith: 24.2


Matt Moore: 11.92

Brett Favre: 13.76

Eli Manning: 18.76

Jay Cutler: 18.92

David Garrard: 20

Derek Anderson: 22.6

Alex wasn't as bad as you're making him out to be. Was he good enough? Nope. Just don't blame it all on him. Especially considering he had gone a game and a half without a turnover before he was injured.

nice stats. Obviously this is a pure opinion thread with no correct answer.

The teams we played wee better than us.

Originally posted by smithgdwg:
The teams we played wee better than us.

in this order:

tough schedule
coaching
turnovers
porous defense

Originally posted by HessianDud:
in this order:

tough schedule
coachingturnovers
porous defense

Those 2 were huge. People so quickly forget how the front half of the schedule was murderers row. Those were really tough games. And with coaching we couldn't even get the plays in on time. This team was a mess at the beginning.

[ Edited by SanDiego49er on Nov 18, 2010 at 20:18:30 ]

The reason why we lost the first 5 games was all Singletary's fault. He's the idiot that hired Jimmy Raye and wanted to run the smash mouth offense, also Singletary was the idiot that named Alex Smith the starter and cleared out Hill and Davis.

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:

Originally posted by HessianDud:
in this order:

tough schedule
coachingturnovers
porous defense

Those 2 were huge. People so quickly forget how the front half of the schedule was murderers row. Those were really tough games. And with coaching we couldn't even get the plays in on time. This team was a mess at the beginning.

yup, and yet--we were in every game but two. we could have easily gone 3-2 in our toughest five games if it weren't for costly turnovers and a defense that can never come up with a big stop. but our coaching put us in that hole to begin with. we have the sheer talent to compete with the best teams, IMO, but we never come into games prepared enough to pull it off. Not to mention being absolutely blown out twice.

[ Edited by HessianDud on Nov 18, 2010 at 20:21:19 ]