Mellinger: Alex Smith is out of excuses, and he needs to deliver his best season

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

My position on Alex Smith has always been clear - he makes your team exactly as good as it is.

He's not Aaron Rodgers, who makes it better. He's not Matt Cassel, who makes it worse.

If you took the Chiefs and every other team in the league, subtracted the quarterbacks and were asked to rank order them, is there any argument at all that the Chiefs are at least a top 5 team by that metric? I don't think so - the talent on this team is immense.

You're right, I could be being unfair, but my general perception of the NFL 'bell curve' is that every year there 4-5 teams that win 12+ games and another 2-3 that win 11.

So if I'm right and Alex Smith truly is a guy who makes your team exactly as good as it is and I believe that the Chiefs are a top 5 team quarterback excluded, then 11 wins should be a fair expectation.

By season's end it's possible he could have played well and we end up at 10 wins; I'd still deal with that. But anything less has to be seen as an unqualified failure for Alex Smith and a definite sign that he's not a quarterback that can take this team anywhere meaningful.

I'm not throwing stones, I legitimately want to know because I respect your opinion, but where are you at on injuries?

Jamaal Charles, Justin Houston, a myriad of other dudes missing serious time changes the equation significantly. Worst case scenario, Charles goes down, misses 8 games, and the narrative is that Alex didn't have his best weapon. Where does your evaluation of him stand then?

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

I'm not throwing stones, I legitimately want to know because I respect your opinion, but where are you at on injuries?

Jamaal Charles, Justin Houston, a myriad of other dudes missing serious time changes the equation significantly. Worst case scenario, Charles goes down, misses 8 games, and the narrative is that Alex didn't have his best weapon. Where does your evaluation of him stand then?

On the other side, is 11+ wins always good enough? It depends on what you define as a good season. Alex haters are going to be ridiculously unreasonable. Alex homers are going to be ridiculously apologetic.

I don't care about winning games if they're done the wrong way. Last 2 years are funny examples. In 2013, we won 9 games despite Alex (easy schedule, defense bailed him out most games) yet went 2-5 in games where Alex played some of the best football in his Chiefs' career but the D laid a big goose egg. In 2014, he was a huge reason for the Chiefs going 7-1 during their hot streak, but was also a huge reason for the Chiefs going 1-5 the other miserable stretch.

My criteria for Alex has always been simple... if you're going to manage games, you better convert third downs and close games. If you open up the offense, you have a lot more leniency on those 2 points.

[Why Not?]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

I'm not throwing stones, I legitimately want to know because I respect your opinion, but where are you at on injuries?

Jamaal Charles, Justin Houston, a myriad of other dudes missing serious time changes the equation significantly. Worst case scenario, Charles goes down, misses 8 games, and the narrative is that Alex didn't have his best weapon. Where does your evaluation of him stand then?

I'm not speaking for DJ'sLN here, but my opinion would be that the narrative on Alex wouldn't change at all. Sure, the win total would, but not his ability to win or lose more games. Since, as far as I know, there's not a stat like WAR for football, let's say Jamaal is worth 4 wins(the Chiefs will win 4 games with him that they lose with Davis or West as the bell cow). So if we're using 11 wins as our base, let's say with JC out(please no, not again), the Chiefs are a 7 win team. I think the point he is making is that Alex will go out and win you those 7 games. He won't win 10, he won't win 5. He'll keep the needle right in the middle.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

I'm not throwing stones, I legitimately want to know because I respect your opinion, but where are you at on injuries?

Jamaal Charles, Justin Houston, a myriad of other dudes missing serious time changes the equation significantly. Worst case scenario, Charles goes down, misses 8 games, and the narrative is that Alex didn't have his best weapon. Where does your evaluation of him stand then?

I'm very optimistic about the Chiefs season. I haven't been this confident since 2003 and 2004 (misplaced, it turned out). The roster is very solid.

But why are we making contingencies for Smith? The defense lost DJ, DeVito, and Berry last year. Guess what? They were still good. No one is talking about Rogers having a bad season because Jordy Nelson is out for the season. No one ever has to make excuses for winners.

He just needs to step up and do it. Period.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

I'm not throwing stones, I legitimately want to know because I respect your opinion, but where are you at on injuries?

Jamaal Charles, Justin Houston, a myriad of other dudes missing serious time changes the equation significantly. Worst case scenario, Charles goes down, misses 8 games, and the narrative is that Alex didn't have his best weapon. Where does your evaluation of him stand then?

{shrug}

It depends. Ultimately our thesis is that Smith has enough weapons to win with. If Charles goes down and he's looking at Davis/West + Maclin and Kelce, I'd say he still has an average to slightly above average set of weapons and he should still be decent. Perhaps the team ceiling drops by a game, but I'm not going to give him a pass for anything.

Kelce going down could actually hurt the most, followed by Maclin.

I guess ultimately my answer is that it would take a pretty catastrophic set of injuries for me to just say 'well he didn't have enough to win'. Essentially, the injuries would have to be enough to wipe out my underlying operating assumption: That Smith has the tools around him to succeed. Losing one T or one pass catcher shouldn't be enough to blow that assumption apart.

This line is going to be fine. And there is enough depth among his weapons that he should be able to lose one of the big ones and still be solid. NFL teams deal with injuries and Smith may have to deal with a couple here and there. If he's really completely comfortable in this offense now, that shouldn't be an issue for him and he should continue to perform.

[jonzie04]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Mellinger is right.

It's shit or get off the pot time for Smith. If this isn't an 11+ win football team this year, then they need to seriously look at the draft for the possibility of an escape plan in 2017 (and really, he could have a good season and it is still a good idea to look at a succession plan for when they need to pay for Poe and Kelce).

They could even consider trading Smith in 2016 if the right deal came along but if they're looking to move him, it stands to reason his season wasn't one that would serve to create much trade value for him. Ultimately the acceleration of his signing bonus onto our cap would hurt, but not be crippling. However, his salary for 2016 is guaranteed so the only way to move on would be by trade, taking us off the hook for the guaranteed salary.

That said, I still think he has a career year.

Agree with everything here.

[O.city]

There's no wrong way to win games. Just win.

[jonzie04]

Originally Posted by O.city

There's no wrong way to win games. Just win.

If that was the case, Denver would be trotting out Tim Tebow on Sunday, and The Patriots would have let Brady walk in 2008 when they won all those games with Matt Cassel.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by O.city

There's no wrong way to win games. Just win.

If the winning isn't sustainable, then it's the wrong way to win. 2013 was a great example of that. The defense put up an all-world performance and then stopped doing it. Alex Smith then became a different QB.

The question I keep asking is, why does Alex wait or his defense to suck to step up as a QB? If we're treating this as a "put up or shut up" year for Alex, I don't consider it success if we're winning too many games the wrong way. That is, games where we shit the bed on third downs and in a close game, our offense keeps going 3 and out in the 4th quarter and relies on our defense to make stop after stop. Even if we win games that way, that doesn't make me at all confident that Smith is the right QB.

[O.city]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

If the winning isn't sustainable, then it's the wrong way to win. 2013 was a great example of that. The defense put up an all-world performance and then stopped doing it. Alex Smith then became a different QB.

The question I keep asking is, why does Alex wait or his defense to suck to step up as a QB? If we're treating this as a "put up or shut up" year for Alex, I don't consider it success if we're winning too many games the wrong way. That is, games where we shit the bed on third downs and in a close game, our offense keeps going 3 and out in the 4th quarter and relies on our defense to make stop after stop. Even if we win games that way, that doesn't make me at all confident that Smith is the right QB.

I dont really care much about winning pretty, but the offense has to be better.

[Deberg_1990]

3400 yards, 23 TDs and 11 picks

[jonzie04]

I'm guessing 4000, 27, 14 for Alex this season.

He basically went for 3500 the past two seasons if you add in his per game average and account for the 2 games he missed. Thats around 30 more yards per game. I think Maclin, Dat, and Wilson will go a long ways in getting him that simply through YAC. I think Alex is a little more aggressive this year and it leads to a little more touchdowns, but a lot more picks.

[BossChief]

Counting rushing yards, I see him having a 3800-4000 yard season....7.6ypa...68%comp...29tds (combined rushing and passing)...9ints

[TigeRRUppeRRcut]

Originally Posted by BossChief

Counting rushing yards, I see him having a 3800-4000 yard season....7.6ypa...68%comp...29tds (combined rushing and passing)...9ints

Rush yards definitely get overlooked when accounting for QB production. He gave us 3750 total yards in his first season so being north of 4000 is not out of the question.

[Dave Lane]

Originally Posted by TigerUppercut

Rush yards definitely get overlooked when accounting for QB production. He gave us 3750 total yards in his first season so being north of 4000 is not out of the question.