Originally posted by JAR93:
Jonnydel and thl408, I was wondering if you guys could answer a few questions for me with regards to Kap and his ability as a QB. I have followed this website for a little over a month and have really enjoyed the analysis that you two have provided and I want to thank you guys for doing so. You have really provided objective analysis about Kap and his abilities and you have objectively pointed out the where he has succeeded and where he has failed and I appreciate that. I have a hard time accepting some of the analysis about Kap from the national media because I believe that some of them have confirmation bias. I feel as though some of their analysis isn't always entirely accurate with regards to Kap because they have always believed that he isn't good enough and he won't be good enough so when they analyze his film they tend to only view his mistakes. I don't see that from you guys. So, I was wondering if you two could provide me with your thoughts on Kap as a QB.
I really want to know if he is getting better. When you watch his film from last year and his film from the first two games of the season and then watch him today is he improving in terms of understanding the defense, making his reads, taking what the defense is giving him, throwing with good accuracy and mechanics, and things like this? Do you ever watch the film and notice he will make a mistake in a read or something and then he will be given the same look a second time and he will make the correct read (meaning does he learn from his mistakes)? Do you sense that the coaching staff of the 49ers trusts him and his ability to understand defenses and make the correct reads that they call many plays where he is forced to make those decisions or do you sense that most of his reads/plays are "defined" plays? Is he average, below average, or above average in terms of understanding route concepts, reading defenses, and choosing the correct options on a given play based on a defensive look (when you watch the film of other QBs how does Kap's knowledge or lack thereof compare to them)? From your vantage point, do you believe that he has the ability to put it all together at some point? Lastly, I know he makes mistakes but if you could say on average how many mistakes does he make and do you see him trimming these mistakes down?
I really believe in Kap. I think he has the intelligence, work ethic and talent to be a great player. I wonder sometimes if my belief in him is causing me to just gloss over his mistakes or if people really overstate his flaws. I've heard a ton of people mention how he isn't getting better, he still stares down his receivers all the time, and he routinely misses open receivers. I know he does these things but when I watch him I feel as though it has improved very much from when he first took the job as well as from last year. I see commitment from him to throw the ball with touch, to stay in the pocket and go through his progressions, and things like that. But as I said maybe I am biased and so I am truly seeing something that isn't there. If you could please tell me what your opinions on Kap, I would greatly appreciate it.
well, I can offer my humble opinion about that, I'm not an expert, but will try and answer that as best I can. What you're asking, I've been watching his game film for about a year now and spent a lot of the offseason watching last season and his first season as a starter(when he took over for AS).
With CK, You're not seeing growth in leaps and bounds from week to week. He's a guy that if you look at different phases of his starting career, like his first 5 games compared to his 6-10 games played, you see growth. If you look at first half of his first full year as a starter to the 2nd half of that year(last year) you see growth. If you look at last year compared to this year, you see growth. If you look at one game to the next, you don't always see growth.
He's not a guy that I see the growth in his game a meteoric rate. I'll try and break it down into what I see growth in and what I don't.
Footwork: when you look at the first 7 games he started, footwork was very spotty, he didn't have rhythm to his footwork, timing wasn't great, and he struggled a lot from under center. This is one reason we ran so much out of shotgun during those games.
last year - his footwork was pretty good. He plant foot, front foot mechanics were good, but, if he had to maneuver in the pocket, he often threw off balance or was taking his sprinter strides, which hampered his maneuverability in the pocket.
This year - his footwork from under center has been, for the most part, good. He's doing better on his timing in his footwork, his dropback steps have been more better in his knee bend and he's not overstriding his backdrop. He still gets a little "tall" when he's sitting in the pocket - what I mean is, as he's hopping around he tends to extend his legs a little which is one of the reasons his release is a little slower. Because, he has to bend back down to load for the fire. If you watch Drew Brees in the pocket, even at his short height, his knees are always bent in a perfect throwing stance so that he's loaded to fire at all times - same with Peyton Manning and Rodgers. Now, compared to a guy like Cam Newton or Phillip Rivers or Matt Stafford, his footwork is better than those guys. So, he's not up there with the elite guys in footwork, but he's better than average.
Reads and progression - When you look at his first 7 games he was definitely a 1 read QB. He understood defenses, but, not how to work his progressions against defenses.
His 2nd year, you saw a lot of hesitation in his reads as you could tell, like Greg Roman said, there was still a lot of, "never seen that before" going on. It also didn't help that he didn't get a lot of help from his receiving corps against man coverage. I saw a lot of growth in that year in his ability to identify the possible defenses that a team presents pre-snap and knowing where he was gonna go in the defense was different than what they were showing - to a degree. But, as it got later in the year I saw less of the not knowing where to go in his progressions. Sometimes, I think it's not as much about an ability to get through a progression but how quickly he can do that. Sometimes, he needs to know that he can't give his receivers 2 seconds before they can win their matchup. What I mean is, sometimes he'll look at a receiver looking for the guy to win his release for a couple seconds, realize the guy hasn't won, and by that point, it's too late to move through to the rest of the progression. At this level, things happen so fast, your guy has to win off the snap, if not, you move on. Sometimes, he trusts his receivers too much.
What I've seen as his biggest struggle this year in "staring down" receivers. It isn't as much in that he doesn't know where else to go, it's that he'll be very confident in where he's going based upon his pre-snap read and locks on to his read. The problem that creates is that defenders will close the windows by reading his eyes. Where I really want to see growth out of him now is in his ability to move defenders around with his eyes and his ability to get us out of negative plays.
I think the part of his growth that's frustrated a lot of people is that he's on a team that is built to win - so a lot of it comes down to him being able to develop into a great QB in a relatively short period of time. What's also frustrating, is that, from game to game, the growth isn't necessarily there. So, he'll be up and down with an overall upward trend. So, some games, he'll do lights out at all aspects of being a QB. Other games, he'll be sub-par and on the 49ers, there's very little tolerance from us fans for anything sub-par from a QB. I do believe that his ceiling is still above him, but I would like to see him farther along considering this is his 4th year in the league.
