Colin Kaepernick Thread

Originally posted by LowerTheBoom:

Originally posted by SofaKing:
Excellent article by Bucky Brooks:

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000547025/article/colin-kaepernicks-struggles-do-the-49ers-have-a-franchise-qb

A real honest breakdown of his strengths and weaknesses, the 49ers offense, and his future going forward. Supported by facts and actual football analysis.

I read an article earlier today, I can't find it, but it offered a bunch of opinions from analysts about Kap and his future as an NFL QB.

Charlie Casserly was on NFLN and pretty much gave his oath of damnation about Kap and said the 49ers need to can him.

I found it funny that all the QB's they asked - Phil Simms, Tim Hasselbeck, Jake Plummer - and another one or two I can't remember, all cited Kap's flaws, but scoffed at the idea the team should give up on him, and instead also cited his rare playmaking ability, times he has been great as a passer outside AND inside the pocket, and questioned the coaching staff.

It's telling that former actual QB's, guys who were pocket passers, who know what it takes to succeed as a passer in the NFL, all went to bat for him.

I've never had much respect for Casserly as an evaluator or commentator. Guy acts like a know-it-all, and his track record stinks, particularly at the QB position and development in it.

Exactly. It's also funny that all the people condemning Kap to certain doom rarely, if ever, break down the film. They cherry pick a game, or a few plays, and try and paint the complete picture based off that.

The most detailed articles/breakdowns of Kap's game that I've read all have one thing in common. They were usually written by a former player, especially QBs, and they come to the conclusion that this is a quality QB. He has shortcomings, but he also has strengths, and he's a winner. Bad games happen. He'll play out of it and bounce back.

Also find it hilarious that a certain struggling QB in the mid-west is being defended because his offensive line is poor. Oh, the irony.

Originally posted by philosoraptor:
I agree in some sense. What he needs to do is consistently put us in a place to win. For example the vikings game I thought he played well. He made some clutch throws on third down andwas efficient. He played great in the steelers game even though no one around him played well except torrey. And then he completely shat the bed last game. I jsut want consistent games where he is atleast good. Every player is going to have a couple bad games, but I just dont want it to be every two to three weeks. He doesnt need to be elite, as there is only a handful of those guys.

It's not realistic to ask a QB - especially a young QB in a transitional phase - to consistently play well when his OL is consistently horrendous.

There are varying levels of pass pro, it's not just "clean pocket or no clean pocket"-- There are instances where protection is excellent, meaning the QB can sit back there all day, there are times the DL gets a step on the OL (that's when a poised, savvy QB manipulates the pocket with his feet), and there are times where the OL gets beat so bad that a pass rusher is ina QB's face before he can even finish his drop back.

I've seen way too many instance of the latter from the OL dating back to last year. QB's have been successful not having all day to throw, but NO QB is successful when they consistently can't drop back and have to run for their lives.

What I'm saying is there is a threshold for what you can expect a QB to work with in terms of protection break downs. If it can happen to future HOFer's like Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees in the playoffs... it can happen to anyone.

Just to be clear, there are a lot of plays where Kap just didn't get rid of the ball when he had an open player, so I'm not excusing him... but the amount and level of protection breakdowns are unacceptable, and it's hard to realistically imagine any QB thriving under these circumstances.

Originally posted by LowerTheBoom:

Originally posted by Paul_Hofer:
We have the talent to not be blown out 90-25 the last two games. We don't have the talent to be competitive.

Many scoffed that losing Justin ("one arm") Smith was a problem. Or Ray McDonald and Iupati. Or even Willis. Not to mention Culliver, Cox, Borland, A. Davis and Aldon Smith. One poster likened the Niners to the Golden State Warriors as going to the SB as a Cinderella team. Put the great young guys just waiting to be Pro Bowlers. All the losses are really a blessing. Remember that logic? Kool Aid drinkers.

No, the talent level is not competitive. Kap is at best an average QB. With Bowman's recovery, the Niners have no elite players and several subpar players (read: OL). A good coaching staff might have made the Niners competitive this season, but not the coaches we have now. This is really a perfect storm of screw ups and retirements.

Well, I don't remember anyone scoffing, per se, at the loss of Justin Smith. Some of us thought the loss of Cowboy wouldn't be AS bad because we have a deep DL and young, talented players we had groomed for the position, like Dial and Carradine.

While nobody on the DL has made the kind of impact Justin Smith did, DL has actually been one of the bright spots on the team.

I don't know if Dorsey should be starting. He's a solid (solid, not great) run stuffer, but offers almost nothing as a pass rusher.

The other losses you mentioned have been absolutely crippling, particularly Anthony Davis and Aldon Smith.

When I said competitive, I didn't mean a contender. I meant we have the talent to be keep games against any opponent in reasonable distance and claw for a playoff spot-- for example, with Vic Fangio running the D, NO WAY do Big Ben and Antonio Brown play a game of 50 yd pitch and catch through 4 quarters.

Leaks happen, but good coaches find ways to plug them before the basement floods. The Steelers found a leak, and instead of plugging it, they let the flow blast the hole open.

We scored 18 points in the PIttsburgh game, and could have easily had 2 more TD's had Bruce Miller made a clean catch on the sideline and Kap's knee stayed up for an inch as he crossed the goal line. That's 32 points- couple of stops and we're in striking distance. That's the diference between a blowout and a close game inthe NFL.

Still though, we both seem to agree... not enough on this team to contend, but no way we should be getting humiliated like this. Pittsburgh could have put up 60 on us if they really wanted to be jerks.

If only ... Miller had done this, Kap had done that ... You can play the same game that Pittsburgh could have scored another 30 had they wished to.

Originally posted by Paul_Hofer:
We have the talent to not be blown out 90-25 the last two games. We don't have the talent to be competitive.

Many scoffed that losing Justin ("one arm") Smith was a problem. Or Ray McDonald and Iupati. Or even Willis. Not to mention Culliver, Cox, Borland, A. Davis and Aldon Smith. One poster likened the Niners to the Golden State Warriors as going to the SB as a Cinderella team. Put the great young guys just waiting to be Pro Bowlers. All the losses are really a blessing. Remember that logic? Kool Aid drinkers.

No, the talent level is not competitive. Kap is at best an average QB. With Bowman's recovery, the Niners have no elite players and several subpar players (read: OL). A good coaching staff might have made the Niners competitive this season, but not the coaches we have now. This is really a perfect storm of screw ups and retirements.

What? That is all EVERYONE talked about in the off season was the loss of talent and an unprecedented, never before seen level. Where you been?

t

Originally posted by SofaKing:
Exactly. It's also funny that all the people condemning Kap to certain doom rarely, if ever, break down the film. They cherry pick a game, or a few plays, and try and paint the complete picture based off that.

The most detailed articles/breakdowns of Kap's game that I've read all have one thing in common. They were usually written by a former player, especially QBs, and they come to the conclusion that this is a quality QB. He has shortcomings, but he also has strengths, and he's a winner. Bad games happen. He'll play out of it and bounce back.

Also find it hilarious that a certain struggling QB in the mid-west is being defended because his offensive line is poor. Oh, the irony.

It really starts to get hard to have intelligent discussions on the topic when people are blind and in denial of their own bias.

Andrew Luck is a great player with a great future. Don't hate the guy.. more so the blind sheep farm that follows him

But let's put things in perspective: Andrew Luck is a QB who BRED as a pro-style pocket passer, the son of an NFL QB, is in his 4th season in the NFL and playing in a QB-friendly offense with an elite cast of skill players...

Yet every critical, bonehead mistake he makes and every time he s**ts the bed is excused and swept under the rug... and people are willing to just pull the plug on Kap, who is in reality making less mistakes than the "polished pocket passer".

Originally posted by LarryLestersBuns:

Originally posted by Paul_Hofer:
We have the talent to not be blown out 90-25 the last two games. We don't have the talent to be competitive.

Many scoffed that losing Justin ("one arm") Smith was a problem. Or Ray McDonald and Iupati. Or even Willis. Not to mention Culliver, Cox, Borland, A. Davis and Aldon Smith. One poster likened the Niners to the Golden State Warriors as going to the SB as a Cinderella team. Put the great young guys just waiting to be Pro Bowlers. All the losses are really a blessing. Remember that logic? Kool Aid drinkers.

No, the talent level is not competitive. Kap is at best an average QB. With Bowman's recovery, the Niners have no elite players and several subpar players (read: OL). A good coaching staff might have made the Niners competitive this season, but not the coaches we have now. This is really a perfect storm of screw ups and retirements.

What? That is all EVERYONE talked about in the off season was the loss of talent and an unprecedented, never before seen level. Where you been?

I've been right here. A Niners fan for 50 years. Some in this forum didn't take the loss of talent as a problem, in fact, saw it as an opportunity for improvement.

Originally posted by Paul_Hofer:
If only ... Miller had done this, Kap had done that ... You can play the same game that Pittsburgh could have scored another 30 had they wished to.

You missed my point.

My point was that very little things can sometimes be the difference between a blow-out and a close game, and that's where coaching comes into play. Point is we were moving the ball easily and in position to keep putting up points and we didn't.

If we weren't competitive, we would have never even been in position to score and gotten shut out or would have had to keep punting the ball. The score was more indicative of our lack of a quality coaching staff than a lack of talent.

You're right, Pittsburgh could have scored another 30 points-- because we couldn't figure out a way to take away the deep ball, and its not strictly because Antonio Brown is better than Acker, because Brown is better than all but 1 or 2 NFL CB's -- if that. It's one thing for a good QB to pick you apart... it's another for them to just play pitch and catch 40-50 yards down the field ALL GAME LONG.

Far less talented teams than this 49ers team have gone to the playoffs.

Originally posted by Paul_Hofer:
I've been right here. A Niners fan for 50 years. Some in this forum didn't take the loss of talent as a problem, in fact, saw it as an opportunity for improvement.

Some people saw the DL losses as manageable because we had drafted some young DL that there was some high praise for.

Not a single person saw the loss of Aldon Smith, Anthony Davis and Chris Borland as "opportunity for improvement". Those were young, impact players with no adequte replacement or even hope for one on the roster.

Still no reason to be as bad as we are.

Originally posted by Buchy:

Originally posted by Ike49:

Originally posted by philosoraptor:

Originally posted by smithgdwg:

Originally posted by znk916:

Kap is basically Michael Vick all over again.

At least Kap hasn't killed any dogs...well any that we know about.

The way people act whe he has a bad game he might as well punt puppies and punch infants.

He probably has, hell dude looks just like a terrorist

This post is so stupid.

You're right, he's more like an actual terrorist..........of my football sanity and high hopes

Originally posted by SofaKing:
Excellent article by Bucky Brooks:

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000547025/article/colin-kaepernicks-struggles-do-the-49ers-have-a-franchise-qb

A real honest breakdown of his strengths and weaknesses, the 49ers offense, and his future going forward. Supported by facts and actual football analysis.

Thanks for posting that. Agree with a lot of it. The MIN game had a lot of flood, high-low reads. Teams will begin to take it away and ARI naturally takes it away by being a predominantly man coverage team, the type of coverage Kap sees less of - most teams will play zone against the 49ers. Looking back, the 49ers really should have spread the field against ARI instead of the tight pistol formations. Some hated it when HaRo spread the field 4 wide, but what it did was give Kap clear defined reads as to who has a mismatch in coverage. Then throw lasers to beat coverage. A lot of us recall how he looked so good in ARI last season when they spread the field and went quick huddle. Geep should have just done that. Of course, knowing what we know now.

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by SofaKing:
Excellent article by Bucky Brooks:

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000547025/article/colin-kaepernicks-struggles-do-the-49ers-have-a-franchise-qb

A real honest breakdown of his strengths and weaknesses, the 49ers offense, and his future going forward. Supported by facts and actual football analysis.

Thanks for posting that. Agree with a lot of it. The MIN game had a lot of flood, high-low reads. Teams will begin to take it away and ARI naturally takes it away by being a predominantly man coverage team, the type of coverage Kap sees less of - most teams will play zone against the 49ers. Looking back, the 49ers really should have spread the field against ARI instead of the tight pistol formations. Some hated it when HaRo spread the field 4 wide, but what it did was give Kap clear defined reads as to who has a mismatch in coverage. Then throw lasers to beat coverage. A lot of us recall how he looked so good in ARI last season when they spread the field and went quick huddle. Geep should have just done that. Of course, knowing what we know now.

I've wanted Kap to be in the spread ever since that first drive of that game. In all of Harbaugh's tenure with the team I've never seen the offense move the ball so effectively down the defenses throat.

Originally posted by mayo49:

Originally posted by Ike49:

He probably has, hell dude looks just like a terrorist

Osama Bin Kap

Loved him at first. Now I'm slowly growing tired of him. But that is overshadowed by my dislike of York and Baalke.

Originally posted by LowerTheBoom:

Originally posted by solidg2000:

Please stop comparing Kaep and Luck. Luck is far superior to Kaep. Luck is on a far worse team, where he is soley responsible for their success. Usually he has to score over 24 points to win a game. Where I believe Kaep and the 49ers were closer to 17. Kaepernick has also thrown an INT in 16 games, of those 16 games, he only won 6. As opposed to Luck who has still won over half the games he's thrown an INT in. So Luck shows a far greater ability to bounce back from a mistake. Where Kaepernick on the other hand struggles after a mistake. Btw Kaepernick has never won a game where he's thrown 2 or more picks (Luck has won 5 such games).

Lastly Luck in the playoffs. He did beat Cin, KC, and Den. Those are not powder puffs. And he played great games too.

Kaepernick on the other hand had a great/amazing 2012. 2013, not so much. Vs GB he was barely over 50 comp % 1 TD and 1 INTs and he literally threw the game losing int that was somehow dropped by the cb (shields I think). That ball literally hit him right in the hands. Vs Car again barely 50% 1 TD no INTs and despite almost 30 passes only 198 yards. Then came Sea, no need to review that. My point is aside from 2012, Kaepernick struggled in the playoffs too.
2013- 45 for 82, 576 yards, 3 TDs and 3 INTs, with a 74.0 rating in 3 games
Compared to Luck
2013- 49 for 86, 774 yards, 6 TDs and 7 INTs, with a 76.4 rating in 2 games

You need to get your facts straight.

One way you can do that is by looking at who has more turnovers since they've been in the NFL and who is a turnover machine in the playoffs between the 2 players. (Hint: It's not Kaepernick).

Up until mid last year when Reggie Wayne got hurt, Luck had 2 #1 caliber WR's to throw to - a HOFer waiting to happen in Reggie Wayne and T.Y. Hilton, who is probably the most underrated WR in the NFL and as explosive of a downfield playmaker as there is.

It's funny you made sure to mention what could have been "The Game Losing INT that was dropped by Sam Shields"... yet you completely fail to acknowledge the GAME WINNING TD pass, to Vernon Davis, in tight coverage, in a f**king blizzard.

"Struggled in the playoffs?" Struggled all the way to a better TD:INT ratio than Luck, struggled to a handful of rushing TD's that you failed to include, struggled to a 17 point comeback on the road, struggled to a Super Bowl appearance... and struggled to 1 play away from a 28 point comeback on the road in the Super Bowl.


It's embarrassing the lengths some of you "fans" go to in order to bash a proven winner that works his ass off and has carried this team at times.

Misinformation, false information, random, small, convenient sample sizes, glorifying things that DIDN'T happen while failing to acknowledge big plays that DID happen...

Maybe you should try and actually read what I wrote. I was talking about the 2013 season. I guess I wasn't clear. I did give Kaep credit for his amazing 2012 season playoff performance but apparently I can't criticize the following years PASSING performance.

And again for the 100th million time, 49ers team was better then the Colts team. Way better, not even close. In 2013 season Wayne didn't play in the playoffs btw. And like I showed, Luck had a better QB rating that playoffs even with a s**ttier team.

Oh and I got my stats from actual stats.

And by your logic Brett Favre is the worst QB ever

Just a reminder here that Roethlisberger, Flacco, Eli all sucked in the early years.

Ask Seattle fans how Roethlisberger in that first Super Bowl they played was compared to Kap........he was terrible, maybe the worst SB performance of all time by a game winning QB.

If Seattle is able to continuously give Wilson the stable platform these other teams have had, he might be able to become a very good QB in this league.

But if they cannot, then you'll see a QB who has had a lot of the same struggles as Kap.

It's easy to want to give up on Kap, but more important is the team around him.