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Expectations? I would imagine that the only people who have expectations, realistic or otherwise, are his detractors. Most of the people in favor of him for the pick understand that although he was a fantastic player for three years and may be far and away the most talented QB in this draft, that's no guarantee for success at the next level. On the flip side most of the people in favor of him also understand that you can't ever draft a franchise quarterback if you don't ever actually attempt to try to draft a franchise quarterback. Most of the people in favor of him understand that we are in a unique position as a team, a position we've never found ourselves in before, where we would have had the opportunity to draft a potential franchise player without any chance at another team's interference.
But the key word there is "potential". Drafting Geno Smith, and the discussion of Geno Smith, has never been about expectations. It's been about potential. What he might be. Which, to bring Alex Smith into the discussion, is the area where the issue with his presence lies (at least for me): Alex Smith is a known quantity. He's a game manager with limited skills in the intermediate and deep passing game, a player who has established by this point that he needs to rely on a strong running game to limit mistakes and a defense to carry him to wins. The kind of quarterback that barely survives low scoring games. He is what he is, and it's pretty unlikely that he's going to become anything more than that at this point.
So the question becomes this: do you want a known quantity with limited upside for a fairly high price? A player who's middle of the pack at best, isn't likely to lead your team anywhere on his own merits, but also isn't likely to make a lot of costly mistakes. Or do you want an unknown quantity with both nearly limitless upside as well as a real risk for failure, at the highest price possible (well, short of trading up to 1)? A player that could be, in time, one of the tops at his position in the league, or...may never be.
In any event, it doesn't really matter; they made their choice.
And I'm admittedly a conspiracy nut, but I believe they made it before they even went through the process of evaluating this draft class. I think Alex Smith was a part of the lengthy day-long discussion Andy Reid had with Clark prior to KC hiring the coach, and I think making a strong move for him was a contingency of the hire. Which, if true, would be a real shame, because that would mean we'd anchored ourselves to him without even considering any other possibilities.
(This is just a personal theory, based on absolutely nothing but a gut feeling...)
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