http://blogs.sacbee.com/49ers/archives/2012/12/kaepernick-wins-nfc-player-of-the-week.html
I was reading this article and it confirmed something I was thinking about quite a bit recently. Some of our BEST years were years when we had two guys in the stable. Heck, you can add to the list here by going back to DeBerg-Montana. There was also the Years we had Grbac as a back up. The media loves QB controversy but I think teams thrive off of this. There has never been a magic year where Qbs survive the injury bug in the NFL. People mocked the skins for taking Cousins when they already had RGIII but look how that turned out. The list goes on in NFL history (Skins, Giants, Pats, all won big with "backups") and currently (Patriots, Seahawks, niners, Redskins and more have taken the "luxury of a good #2 who is filling in admirably or starting) but that belongs on the NFL threads.
In my perfect world I would love to keep Smith on this team. It's not likely to happen but we are a better team with both of these guys on the roster. The default position is that we will cut or trade smith. I think we forget that that is purely a "financial" determination for the team. That being said Smith wouldn't be the most expensive backup in the world. I would look very hard at the option of retaining Smith next year if I was Baalke. Regardless I would not let Smith go without a real plan for the backup for Kaep.
That might be Tolizien. It might be a draft pick. I will be curious to see what we do with the position moving forward. We certainly have the luxury of signing smith, though that would make things "tight" with the Cap but not impossible. I'm not real keen on grabbing free agent as the market is just too "skewed" there. I think people have forgotten that being a good backup, cassell, flynn, Skelton, etc is sometimes just being a good backup. Everyone seems to get paid too much based on too little info. In which case I would say the draft may also be the answer. There aren't any "can't miss" prospects this year. Geno Smith won't be there and I wouldn't touch matt Barkley with a 10 foot pole. See every other USC QB. That being said there are some intriguing possibilities out there and we have the luxury to draft QB if we choose.
The intriguing thing about these I named is they are 2nd to 3rd round prospects with SIZE which might be an interesting way to go to have another big rangy guy to back up Kaep.
Mike Glennon QB North Carolina 6-5 232 2nd rd. prospect
Tyler Bray QB Tennessee 6-5 215 2nd round prospect
Zac Dysert QB Miami (Ohio) 6-3 228 2nd-3rd round prospect
Landry Jones QB Oklahoma 6-4 220 2nd-3rd round prospect
[ Edited by VA49er on Dec 19, 2012 at 9:58 AM ]
