Quote:
Originally Posted by warrior
And sacked six times, I lost count of the pressure's Alex did OK  |
That's the part that I think is being overlooked. You wanna criticize him overall- fine, but yesterday he got shit for protection, picked up 40 scrambling, his completion % was fine, and you can point out his poor throws on longer attempts, but they were getting pressure and it has an effect. Sure, he has to get better, but his play was an improvement from the previous 2 weeks. Andy already said he's going to be looking at his decision on the plays he called in the second half, and said that's in part to blame on him because he called the plays and didn't do a good job of adjusting to the changes the Browns made at halftime.
It's not to make an excuse for his play overall, because there are spots you can have valid criticism of his play, just as you can see he did better in some areas this last game. It's just important to realize that everything is not solely to blame on Smith, and if people want to be honest and objective about it, then this last game is hardly the result of Alex not playing well with plenty of room to be critical of the line or as Andy fully admitted, his playcalling for the 2nd half. Completion %, QB rating, yards, 2 tds, not turnovers, etc kind of indicate that he was not the source of issue, though missed opportunities are fine to discuss reasonable, but some are a bit too negative in their assessment if you really look at his last performance.