Alex Smith May Be Your Next David Carr
After Monday night’s game against the Seattle Seahawks the San Francisco 49ers continued a seven game losing streak. During this streak the offense has been flat out embarrassing. They rank second to last in total offensive yards, last in points per game, and most critical, last in first downs. They have had two games this season where they have only gained 6 first downs, the last time that happened, JFK was President and football players were not wearing face masks.
Clearly it is evident that the 49ers offense is the true reason why they have hit rock bottom and may be potentially the worst team in the NFL. With all these offensive problems there are whisperings emerging in the media that Alex Smith is a bust. They are saying that he is no better than David Carr or Joey Harrington. For me I am still hesitant to make that conclusion and say he could have been the biggest mistake the 49ers have made in the their draft history. But there is plenty of evidence to support it.
Fact #1 Alex has yet to throw more TD’s than INT’s – Over his 2 and half season career Alex has thrown a combined 31 INTs vs. 19 TDs. If you ask any analyst or former NFL QB what they determine as the best indicator of a QB’s greatness, they always measure the TD to INT ratio. That stat has a direct correlation with the success of the team a QB is leading. The best example of this is Mr. Clutch himself Tom Brady. He posses almost a 3 to 1 ratio, which is an NFL record.
Fact #2 Alex has a record of 11 wins vs. 21 total losses. To me this stat says a lot. It tells me that he is not an NFL winner. When he struggles he struggles, rarely does he lead his team from behind. In fact if he is faced with adversity he usually does something to loss the game either by making a bad throw or he makes a poor decision that puts his team in an impossible situation to win.
Fact #3 Alex was overrated coming out of college. This is more of a statement than a factual statistic. The biggest mistake the GM for the 49ers made when they decided to select him as the #1 selection in the 2005 draft was his fascination with Alex’s size and arm strength. Once again an NFL team got deceived by the player combine numbers and physical looks than really looking into Alex’s ability to translate his college dominance to the pro game. If you look at the offense he ran in college it was 95% shot gun and it evolved around solely around deception such as the QB option. Obviously, when you get to the NFL that stuff simply does not exist. Offenses are more complex and they require the QB to make smart decisions in order to defeat an opposing defense rather rely on trickery to do the same. I believe Alex fits in the same type of category such as Jason White, Troy Smith or even a TY Detmer. They were all amazing college QB’s but mediocre QB’s in the NFL.
