Tag Archives: Alex Smith

Why Alex Smith Will be Back with the 49ers Next Season

Posted on by
Reply

March 19, 2012

So it’s decided. Peyton Manning’s going to Denver after all. For 49ers’ fans, who were casual observers of the Manning Saga until they were suddenly thrust into the middle of it Friday morning, there’s a feeling of loss today.

On the surface, nothing has changed. The team didn’t have a starting QB under contract before Friday, and they don’t today. Alex Smith was available Friday, and he still has not signed a contract.

Below the surface, however, it seems like everything is different. The 2011 49ers were a team built on chemistry and belief in each other, and it all started with Jim Harbaugh’s announcement that he would be just fine with Alex Smith as his quarterback. We all know how it turned out.

Now, we don’t know what to think. Is Harbaugh’s faith in Alex shaken? Does this mean they can’t work together anymore? What about Smith’s teammates, who took their cues about Alex from their coach? Does the team’s pursuit of Peyton Manning mean that they shouldn’t believe in #11?

No, no, and a resounding no.

Hey, I understand that part of the fun part of being a sports fan is putting yourself in the position of the people we watch and trying to imagine how they feel as events unfold. The problem is, unless you’ve actually been there, you have no idea what’s going on and how anybody feels. So before you make an analogy involving the 49ers’ pursuit of Manning and marital infidelity (an analogy I’ve heard on sports radio several times over the past few days), get a hold of yourself.

You heard it here first. Smith will be the quarterback for the 49ers this year. Not out of loyalty or some other emotional motivation; It’s simply the best fit for him. He’s played in a lot of systems for a lot of coordinators over the years, and for him to get his panties in a bunch and leave the team over their interest in a future Hall-of-Famer would be all kinds of stupid. I know there are still plenty of people who don’t believe Smith can take this team to the Super Bowl, but I never heard any of them say that the reason was that he was stupid.

From the 49ers standpoint, it makes just as much sense. Kaepernick is not ready, and nobody else is available to them who projects to win more games than Smith, now that Manning is on his way to Denver.

The irony is that Smith’s detractors will have to do two things: 1) Be impressed that the 49ers tried to upgrade the position, and 2) welcome Smith back as the best option for the team for next season. It actually removes some of the pressure on him to make up for what many people feel was a sub-par performance in the NFC Championship game last year.

Smith was wise to go to Miami and take the temperature down there. Had Manning signed with the 49ers, the Dolphins were really going to be his only option if he wanted to remain a starter.His visit there does not mean that his feelings were hurt to the point that he wouldn’t come back to the ‘Niners, it just meant that he was doing his due diligence, which, again, is a sign of his intelligence.

The 49ers kicked the tires on Peyton Manning. I think they would have gotten him if they weren’t up against  a desperate man, but John Elway was not going to lose out on his only chance to get out from under Tim Tebow. If you can blame the 49ers for anything, it was not seeing that coming. They could have saved themselves some time and trouble, but it will not cost them Alex Smith.

 

Harbaugh-Smith Relationship has Precedents

Posted on by
Reply

Published October 6, 2011 at CSNBayArea.com

Sports fans in the Bay Area have been fascinated by the Jim Harbaugh-Alex Smith relationship since the day the new 49ers coach was hired.

One of his first actions was to announce that Smith would return as QB, much to the disappointment of The Faithful.

After watching Smith struggle for six years, fans were  convinced that he just couldn’t play in the NFL, and the talk shows were full of anger and frustration at the thought of watching No. 11 fling the ball all over Candlestick Park for another season. People just couldn’t imagine that the new coach, a former QB himself, couldn’t see the disaster right around the corner!

Now, with the 49ers at 3-1, with Smith’s performances ranging from “not horrible” to “pretty damn good,” 49er fans are starting to come around to the notion that Harbaugh may have known what he was doing.

You don’t have to look very far to see examples of QB-coach relationships in similar circumstances that worked out pretty well. One took place in Oakland, where Jim Plunkett, who had suffered through 10 nondescript seasons, hooked up with Tom Flores, a former QB himself, and the two combined for two Super Bowl championships.

Had there been a sports talk radio community in those days, it would have been very interesting how the Plunkett signing would have played on the air.

I had the opportunity to talk to a QB who had an experience like this. Sonny Jurgensen is a Hall of Famer, but looking at his career stats you have to feel for the guy.

He led the Eagles to a 10-4 record in his first year as an NFL starter (he was 27, by the way, that’s how it worked then), then suffered through eight non-winning seasons with Philly and Washington. He had good stats, mostly because his teams were always behind, but had played for a succession of coaches who didn’t “get” the passing game. One of those coaches, ironically, was one of the greatest QBs ever, Otto Graham.

That all changed in 1969. The legendary Vince Lombardi, who had retired from Green Bay after the 1967 season, was ready to go back to coaching. The Redskins hired him, and Jurgensen told me, “People know Lombardi for the Packer Sweep, and the defense, and the toughness, but what I learned was that he really was a master of offensive football. I had open receivers all over the field for the first time in my career. It was like the sun came out.”

Jurgensen led the league in attempts, completions, and passing yards. The Redskins went 7-5-2, their first winning season since 1955. Unfortunately, Lombardi was stricken with cancer, and died before the ‘Skins could build on his success. After one year with an interim coach, George Allen was hired and his defensive mindset propelled the Redskins to Super Bowl VII, but Jurgensen’s days of leading the NFL in passing were over.

Steve Young is another player who spent a couple of years in the USFL, played in the NFL for a terrible team, then came to the 49ers, where the QB position was the center of the universe.

He made a very interesting comment about Harbaugh and Smith on KNBR the week before the season’s first game. He was asked point-blank whether he could see Alex Smith hoisting the Super Bowl trophy, in a 49ers uniform. Young paused for about five seconds, and then said “I can.” He went on to explain that as a guy who played several years for coaches who didn’t understand the QB position and didn’t know how to call plays, he knows personally the difference when you get to a situation where the coach and the system are conducive to quarterback play.

Calling plays in the NFL is a lot harder than it looks from your couch, and anyone who has watched the 49ers for any of the past six seasons knows that with very few exceptions that has been a very weak point for this team. Fans have been very critical of the offensive coordinators over the years, but at the same time they have held Smith ultimately responsible for the team’s failure to move the football.

Young’s primary concern for Harbaugh and Smith this season was that because the fans had seen six years of futility from Smith there was no margin for a slow start. He felt that if the Niners got off to an 0-2 start, the crescendo of boos from the stands would be impossible to ignore, and with only a rookie behind Smith, Harbaugh, despite his own job stability, would be off to a very rocky start with the fans.

Fortunately, that isn’t what happened. In fact you could argue that the opposite has taken place, and Smith has shown enough development in the first four games that even if he has a rough game or even two, he and his new coach will have at least a few weeks to try to work out the kinks.

So next time you see Alex Smith trying to explain what’s different about playing for Jim Harbaugh, understand that what he’s trying to say is, “It’s like the sun came out.”