Ten Reason's why The Chiefs Lost

[Discuss Thrower]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

I'm arguing that a sane, reasonable position has always been that "Alex Smith is a middle of the road quarterback that doesn't actively hinder his team's ability to win football games."

You showed a bunch of plays that middle of the road quarterbacks miss all the time. Why? Because at some point you developed this weird straw man whereby every QB that isn't Brady and Rodgers must suck a big ol' chili dog. You couldn't even manage to avoid the same stupid tripe in a thread where Smith actively shit down his leg.

You just showed 10ish plays, half of which were pretty easily defensible and the other half of which are just plays that average quarterbacks miss on occasion. So? I have NEVER argued that Smith was a great quarterback; only that he was an active impediment. Missing on plays that an average quarterback occasionally misses on is expected.

That's not the issue. None of those demonstrate a quarterback that would stare at a wide open guy breaking on a go route and not pull the trigger (at most, a couple demonstrate poor vision, but that wasn't what killed him here).

You've essentially completed a deflected pass to a guy 10 yards away from your intended receiver. Despite your best efforts, you've backed into a correct answer.

With what you've said in mind, then Smith missing Tyreek shouldn't at all be a singular play that makes you say "**** this guy." With that kind of acid test, nobody playing QB in the league hits Hill beside Brady and Rodgers.

What I'm contending here is that Smith isn't even middle of the road -he's a bottom tier veteran QB that's now playing closer to Casselian levels than he is playing closer to the comparison of Andy Dalton who epitomizes the average, middle of the road QB in the current day NFL. The gifs linked early demonstrate he's been bottom tier for a while and has been propped up offensively by getting first downs on scrambles or designed runs for the first three seasons in KC.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Discuss Thrower

With what you've said in mind, then Smith missing Tyreek shouldn't at all be a singular play that makes you say "**** this guy." With that kind of acid test, nobody playing QB in the league hits Hill beside Brady and Rodgers.

What I'm contending here is that Smith isn't even middle of the road -he's a bottom tier veteran QB that's now playing closer to Casselian levels than he is playing closer to the comparison of Andy Dalton who epitomizes the average, middle of the road QB in the current day NFL.

This is where we disagree.

There are maybe 5 QBs in the league that don't make that throw. As I stated previously - there are worse quarterbacks than Smith, guys who will cost you football games, that still make that throw. Lots of bad quarterbacks let that ball fly.

I'm not arguing that they'd all complete it - I'm saying they'd all attempt it. Smith just tucked like a pussy and ran from phantom pressure.

For 3+ years, Smith was Andy Dalton, but without the privilege of throwing to AJ Green. You couldn't slide a slip of paper between the two in terms of their overall contributions (though they got there slightly differently). But Smith's not been right for most of this year and when he seemed to be turning a corner, he got his bell rung in Indy and regressed again.

That's absolutely Casselian. And as Pest noted, Smith's peak was last season. He's going to do more and more Casselian things going forward as he is more and more gunshy.

It's time to move on. Showing him missing throws from last season (when he played quite well and was Dalton's equal) doesn't speak to the present state of things.