NFL Week 15: Mike Phipps' late delivery

Smith has said all the right things, but I suspect inside he is steaming. He came back for a chance to quarterback a team on a Super Bowl run. And now seems to have had the rug pulled out from under him, despite playing pretty darn well most of the year.

 

Look, Niners fans, I really think you're over thinking this. Smith's game against the Saints last year was an outlier. If you fall behind like that again in a big game, what are the odds he'd play another perfect game?

I honestly believe it when coaches say you cannot make decisions like this just based on what's happening in games. You have to understand Harbaugh is seeing these guys every day in practice, running the same plays. He knows what Smith's limitations are, and he knows how tightly he has to manage the game to maximize Smith's ability. It's clear he believes Smith ceiling is, say, something like a six on a scale of 1-10. Why would he not believe Kaep can at least give him a six right now? And by the playoffs, that six might be a 7.5 or in a special situation, an 8.

The only reason Alex Smith is not selling real estate right now is Jim Harbaugh. Harbaugh has been right every single place he's been. He's earned the benefit of the doubt in my eyes. ESPN's Chris Sprow wrote a really good piece a few weeks ago about this, and a lot of it really crystallized the decision for me. Harbaugh made Alex Smith. He can unmake him however he chooses.

Here is Sprow on some of the realities. The paragraph about how Blaine Gabbert actually pushes the ball down the field more than Smith is pretty damning, and shows you how truly handcuffed Harbaugh is with Smith running the offense.


Smith's contract situation matters. His second-year base salary of $7.5 million is fully guaranteed only if Smith remains on the 49ers' roster on April 1, 2013. Overall, that's a $10 million cap hit in 2013 that could be avoided if the Niners know Kaepernick is their starter. In a league where salary-cap restrictions are going to make parity even more the rule, you can't carry a $10 million cap hit for your backup at any position, even quarterback. So creating competition there now isn't just screwing around with a lead in the standings, or a thinly veiled motivational ploy, it's directly related to the financial reality of 2013.

This is also a young team. According to Football Outsiders' research on team age adjusted by snap counts, the Niners are 12th in the league in overall youth, and they haven't even broken in either of their first two 2012 draft picks, A.J. Jenkins and LaMichael James. If they want to go young at QB, it won't throw off the age dynamic of the team.

The future is also in mind when it comes to offensive tactics. Kaepernick offers a few things that the sample size of Smith's career says he doesn't.

The 49ers made personnel moves this offseason designed to help Smith drive the ball down the field a little more. Smith's 2011 campaign was a masterwork in risk evasion, dominated by safe, underneath throws. That's not a crime, but Smith threw the ball more than 20 yards just 9.7 percent of the time last season, per Pro Football Focus. The only other quarterback with 40 or more of those throws who attempted them at a lower rate was Colt McCoy, who's since been banished to Cleveland's bench.

Niners fans might point out that the offense since has loosened up. But that's not true: Smith has attempted just 17 throws that travel 21-plus yards in 2012. That's 31st in the NFL among qualifying starters. Even Blaine Gabbert was driving the ball down the field more often before he went on injured reserve. And even intermediate throws are lacking. Smith has thrown just 37 passes this season that travel 10 to 20 yards, also 31st in the NFL. Yes, he doesn't have a lot of attempts, but even on a rate basis, he's not throwing down the field. That 9.7 percent from last year? He's at 8.3 this season.

The 49ers have in Kaepernick a quarterback capable of those "chunk yardage" throws, and it's not true that an offense based on the run will seek to avoid them. It can be the exact opposite. TheHouston Texans' offense is dominated by the run and thus uses play-action on nearly every throw for the precise goal of creating space downfield and big throws in the passing game. That San Francisco, with its own great running game, hasn't done so says more about its concerns with its QB than anything.

The future could be a nightmare for opposing defensive coordinators. ESPN's Jon Gruden pointed out during Monday night's game against Chicago that the Bears' defense, who were repeatedly gashed by the 49ers in the first half, hadn't seen any of this on tape. The threat of Kaepernick's bigger arm, plus his ability to run, makes the 49ers more multifaceted than they've ever been. Smith absolutely can execute, but Kaepernick offers the chance to truly surprise teams that feel prepared.

The other element Kaepernick might bring is the ability to diminish negative plays. In 2011, Smith was last in the NFL in QBR's Sack EPA category. Meaning no NFL starter cost his team more points by taking sacks. Smith is an athletic QB, but his track record isn't that of a guy who uses his athleticism to extend passing plays; it's of a guy who can run for an extra yard when needed, but even then, he's 14th in Run EPA this season.

 

When Blaine Gabbert is doing something better than you, that's damning evidence.

 

That information is not all that new. Everyone who watches knows Smith does not get the ball down the field. It is most definitely a limitation, and everyone sees the possibilities with Kaepernick that don't exist with Smith. I don't think there is a lot of "WTF is Harbaugh doing," everybody understood it under the hot hand explanation.

But people (qtlaw for one) come on here, or take to the radio or whatever, and act like Kaepernick never makes a mistake and the team was horrible with Smith. No, they were pretty good. And they were going to be in the same position with him in the playoffs that they were last year -- in the fourth quarter of a game they're depending on their defense to win. Meanwhile, we've had the last two games now that the 49ers' offense has struggled quite a bit and Kaepernick has been doing some things that Smith wouldn't do. The perfect example is throwing on incomplete pass, then stepping out of bounds, on back-to-back plays against the Rams to leave them with 1:48 and a timeout instead of 1:05 and no timeouts. Last weekend the 49ers were out of timeouts (and thus challenges too) with 14 minutes left in a close game against the Dolphins. Know why? Solely because Colin Kaepernick couldn't get them lined up fast enough and the play clock was running out. Three times.

Now, Kaepernick won't be doing things like that in a year or two. But he probably will be doing them in the next three or four games. And that's what Smith adds right now, that mistake avoidance. "Game manager." Horrors!

So I guess the Saints game is an "outlier" in that it's the best game he has ever played and probably ever will play. But it isn't his only comeback or strong fourth-quarter performance. He's pretty good at those actually -- he led a drive for the tying field goal in the NFC championship game last year too.

I also don't worry about the contract. As with Flacco, it's ass-backward to be thinking about that when you are among the Super Bowl favorites.

Kaepernick does a lot of things Smith can't do. But he also does a lot of things Smith knows not to do. A very interesting situation, but overall I think the 49ers would have been 3-0 in their last three games with Smith. They're 2-1 with Kaepernick and they've put themselves behind the 8-ball for the first-round bye and the top seed.

 

I did not say, nor intend to convey, that Kaepernick never makes a mistake.

All I'm saying is that Smith is very limited, almost to the point of suffocating the offense because opponents do not respect the throws over 10 yds. Instead of 8 in the box for the run, it becomes 8-9 in the box against the pass. In the all time game, Vernon Davis got 180 of the 299 passing yds. That was because the Saints were likely the only team to go blitz happy and go man to man on Davis all day. They go zone, no way Smith throws for 299.

Kaepernick helps address that issue. He takes more chances, he can/will throw downfield.

Saying that the 49ers go 3-0 instead of 2-1 harks back to the Rams game but ignores the reality that there is a strong chance that with Smith the 49ers do not sweep the Bears and Saints.

 

As for Smith not pushing the ball downfield, how much of that is the play-calling?

If you want Kaepernick as your guy, fine. I just disagree on the timing of the move, coming in midseason in a year where you are a contender. It's almost -- not quite --- as bad as changing coaches mid-year. And terribly unfair to Smith. If you didn't believe he was your guy, why on earth bring him back in the first place.

It seems that, regardless of what the team does, maybe the die has been cast going forward. If so, fine, release Smith, he'll find a starter's job somewhere in a quarterback-deficit league. I personally don't see Kaepernick as a long-term NFL starter --- and didn't even back in his college days --- but if that's the way you want to go, do it in the offseason.

 

I wasn't really talking about the Bears game because that was an injury absence and thus not part of Harbaugh's decision. But it's garbage to think Smith wouldn't have won that game. The way Aldon Smith was playing, Joe Montana in his current condition would have won that game.

The Saints aren't good and the 49ers scored two defensive touchdowns. Pretty sure Smith survives that one.

The Rams scored 10 points on Kaepernick plays. Everyone focuses on the pitch, but the safety was worse -- he took an intentional grounding in the end zone on a play that started at the 17-yard line.

And the Dolphins game was way too close for comfort.

I don't even mind the decision to go to Kaepernick, I was on board with it. But this idea that Smith was so terrible and they couldn't do anything with him and Kaepernick has been light-years better is really getting bothersome. In the last two weeks, against sub-.500 teams, they have completed three passes longer than 20 yards.

If they lose Sunday night against New England ... man, I would not want to be taking an inexperienced starter into a prime-time game in Seattle with the division on the line. And I don't think anyone thought they wouldn't win the division when Smith was their quarterback.

 

Go back and edit it down to a single paragraph and I might consider reading it.

 

The attention span of the average reader these days......

 

Nothing to do with that.
I value my time.

 

So claim most readers. Thus, I said your response was typical.

 

Where Kaepernick scares me is with his clock management. There have been more than a few times where he almost seems to be panicking just before he takes the snap.

As great as Smith was in the final few minutes of last season's playoff win over the Saints, he was horrendous in the quarter or so leading up to it.

I see the switch to Kaepernick as both exciting and scary at the same time. I would certainly hope that nobody watched the loss to the Rams and thought, "This wouldn't be close if Smith was the QB..." although I'm sure there were some... Those people need to be reminded about how many nailbiters there were last season or games where Akers scored more points than the rest of the offense.