Alex Smith Is Redeemed. Alex Smith Must Go.

I never expected Alex Smith to be this good this year. I predicted the 49ers would go 5-11 as they struggled with a new coach in a shortened off-season, and that Alex Smith would occupy the QB position until Week 15 when rookie Colin Kaepernick would take over to gain some experience going into next season.  I believed whole-heartedly in the Jim Harbaugh era and its promises of future success. I didn’t believe that success would arrive in 2011.  And I definitely didn’t believe that success would come with Alex Smith running the team to near perfection.  The man has played well beyond everyone’s expectations, managing the game beautifully, almost always making the right audible at the line, and even racking up some impressive passing numbers when the situation has called for it.  I could probably count the number of ill-advised throws he’s made all season on one hand.  I would say no QB in the league has played smarter than Alex this season.  He has finally proved that he is not a bust of the Jamarcus Russell or Ryan Leaf vintage.  He is vindicated.

But if the 49ers want to fully capitalize on their newfound success and re-emerge as a football dynasty, Alex Smith must go.

Almost every facet of Alex’ game has improved under Harbaugh.  His confidence has soared, his decision-making has improved drastically, he’s reading defenses better, etc.  But there is one facet that hasn’t improved and it’s the skill that history has showed can’t really be improved.  Accuracy.  Now I know Smith’s completion percentage is at a career high, but that is a reflection of his improved decision making and always finding the open guy rather than actually being anymore precise with the placement of his thrown balls.  There are still 2 or 3 big plays every game that Alex gives away because he either overthrows his receiver and doesn’t give him a chance to catch it, or doesn’t hit his receiver in stride and allows the defender to make a play on the ball. 

He gets away with these accuracy issues because of his spectacular decision making, always finding the most open receiver and therefore not needing to be incredibly accurate. But in the playoffs as the defenses get better and the throwing windows tighten, this will rear its ugly head. The biggest problem will be when a secondary steps up and is able to blanket the receivers, and he needs to throw someone open. I have not seen anything out of him in the past to make me think he can do that.  The elite, franchise qb’s, the multiple super bowl winners, they all have the ability to throw a receiver open whose tightly covered, simply by putting the ball in the ONLY possible spot that it could be caught. An elite QB needs to make the throw that Ben Roethlisberger makes at the :58 second mark of this video.

I remember watching that game live. My first thought was “WHAT A THROW!” My next thought was “Never in a million years could Alex Smith have made that throw.”  And that is essentially why I can never fully get on-board with the Alex Smith movement.  He is playing the best football of his career, he may be the smartest QB in the league right now, but when it’s 4^th and 7 from the 19-yard line and his receivers are all blanketed, and he needs to put that football in a 6-inch window to win the game, I don’t think he can do it. And if he can’t, then the 49ers need to try to find a quarterback that can, or else waste this window of opportunity.