[Jakemall]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

But that's why I don't see how you're going to ignore the highlight reels.

You can find a lot of instances of him doing a really nice job of dropping the ball into closing windows and onto his receivers hands.

What he's not going to do, and what he shouldn't try to do, is rifle a ball into a tight window. His arm's not that strong; it'll get batted away. And his pass diagrams suggest that he's smart enough to know that. You're right in that he doesn't try those Stafford throws into small windows...because that would be quite stupid for Alex Smith.

But he absolutely will go over top of a WR and try to drop the ball into a hole in the coverage. And when he does, he's actually pretty good at it.

I won't try to guess raw numbers because I truly have no idea what Reid's going to do with this offense. But in Smith we're going to get an efficient passer that's smart with the ball and works with the strengths of his personnel. In other words, he's not going to be Jake Plummer; nothing in his career suggests that he'd be that kind of wild card.

You know who he really could be, though? Jeff Garcia. Garcia was athletic, smart with the ball and didn't force the issue but when he had an opening downfield, he took it. He disguised his average NFL arm strength through scrambling when needed and through making smart decisions with the ball. He was a very solid NFL QB that had his teams in legitimate SB contention on a fair occasion.

I think that's a very fair bar to set for Alex Smith.

Another very good post.