Alex Smith did, does, and will always suck. (part 2)

[Hammock Parties]

Old thread is archived here.

[BossChief]

Anyone want to venture a guess for the highest yardage total of a receiver in Alex Smiths offense during his time in te NFL?

[Mr. Plow]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

Bowe has been a different receiver since the bye week.

Smith has been a different QB since the bye week.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

I like Dwayne Bowe, but it's hard to deny that he wasn't himself the first half of the season. He wasn't fighting for position, he was slow off the break, and he was dropping too many of the easy ones. Even the Smith critics and many of the Bowe defenders acknowledged that.

Maybe it's because he wasn't happy about not getting the ball. I still believe that Haley conditioned and motivated him in ways he doesn't get enough credit for. But in any event, Bowe is playing better and while some of that is probably because Smith/Reid are showing more trust in him, it also doesn't excuse him for not putting the right effort in early in the year.

Bowe has been a different receiver since the bye week.

All-22 footage showed several times early in the season that Bowe (and others) were wide open and Smith just ignored them.

Look, it's not all Smith's fault that the offense sucked early. He's also not completely blameless.

[WhiteWhale]

Originally Posted by Wallcrawler

Have to understand the skepticism though. I mean with as long as this dude has been around, and with as much emphasis that has been on the passing game since he came into the league, his what, 3100 yards or so that he has right now is his career high.

Normally when youre surprised to see your QB eclipse 200 yards in a game through the air, that generally suggests that the guy isn't all that great at throwing the football. Especially in an era of football where a guy can throw for over 400 yards in a game and nobody really bats an eye at it.

Right now he's dead middle of the pack at 16 out of 32, and his average yards per attempt is near the lowest in the list at 6.6. Who knows how low that average was before Charles' YAC explosion against the Raiders.

IT was 6.2 prior to the Raiders game, which is quite terrible.

[OnTheWarpath15]

Originally Posted by BossChief

Anyone want to venture a guess for the highest yardage total of a receiver in Alex Smiths offense during his time in te NFL?

An actual WR? Or are you including TE?

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by OnTheWarpath58

This.

I've enjoyed watching people make complete asses of themselves all season, acting as if Bowe is some POS WR.

Is he Megatron? Nope.

AJ Green? Nope.

Brandon Marshall? Nope.

Has he put up solid numbers damn near every year with scrubs like Tyler Thigpen, Brodie Croyle, Damon Huard, Kyle Orton and Matt Cassel throwing to him?

Yep.

And now people want to blame Bowe for having an off year statistically?

NOPE.

I've largely defended Bowe.

But as someone that's in the stands every game, I can say he's not been the same guy this year as he's been in years past. He isn't getting the separation he used to. Now he was never a great route runner and never a guy that simply broke wide open, but he did have a little more burst and he was able to get more open then than he does now.

At the same time, Cassel would force it to him even when he wasn't open. This argument is a little like the argument in favor of keeping Thigpen when he was inflating TG's numbers. A guy may have great numbers precisely because his QB is a piece of shit. That's why Gonzalez lit it up with Thiggy. That's why Bowe did so well with Cassel. Open or not, Cassel was going to throw it to him and oftentimes Bowe would bring it in.

Oftentimes it would also get knocked away to kill a drive or flat out intercepted. Smith does a much MUCH better job of getting the ball to his pass-catchers than Cassel did, he just doesn't get them to a single pass-catcher as well.

Bowe's production those years wasn't exactly proof positive that he was a world beater. Nor is it proof that he should continue to be posting those numbers. A) He was simply better at getting open then (be it due to age/conditioning or a scheme that focuses on route precision and quickness in and out of cuts) and B) His numbers were inflated then by a QB that wouldn't look elsewhere.

[The Franchise]

Hey guys....I'm a fan of all 32 teams because I'm against beating women. Guess that means I win the Super Bowl every year.

[Mr. Plow]

Originally Posted by Pestilence

Hey guys....I'm a fan of all 32 teams because I'm against beating women. Guess that means I win the Super Bowl every year.

I like to beat women so I don't like football.

[BossChief]

Alex Smiths most productive receiver for every year he has been in the NFL:

05 Lloyd 48 catches 733 yards 5tds
06 Antonio Bryant 40 catches 733 yards 3tds
07 Battle 50 catches 600 yards 5tds
08 injured
09 Crabtree 48 catches for 625 yards 2tds
10 Crabtree 55 catches for 741 yards 6tds
11 Crabtree 72 catches 874 yards 4tds
12 benched halfway
13 Bowe 52 catches 627 yards 5tds (with 2 games to go)

Seems Bowe is on pace to have a down year, in relation to his previous production history...but that he is on pace to have one of the better years for a receiver on an Alex Smith team.

[OnTheWarpath15]

Originally Posted by BossChief

Alex Smiths most productive receiver for every year he has been in the NFL:

05 Lloyd 48 catches 733 yards 5tds
06 Antonio Bryant 40 catches 733 yards 3tds
07 Battle 50 catches 600 yards 5tds
08 injured
09 Crabtree 48 catches for 625 yards 2tds
10 Crabtree 55 catches for 741 yards 6tds
11 Crabtree 72 catches 874 yards 4tds
12 benched halfway
13 Bowe 52 catches 627 yards 5tds (with 2 games to go)

Seems Bowe is on pace to have a down year, in relation to his previous production history...but that he is on pace to have one of the better years for a receiver on an Alex Smith team.

HEY ASSHOLE, WE WERE SUPPOSED TO GUESS!

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

All-22 footage showed several times early in the season that Bowe (and others) were wide open and Smith just ignored them.

Look, it's not all Smith's fault that the offense sucked early. He's also not completely blameless.

Well... like I said, much of Bowe's resurgence is because Smith/Reid are showing more faith in him. But there is just as much footage of Bowe wide open and missed as there is of Bowe getting a pass and completely dogging it. Both Bowe and Smith are to blame for his early season struggles.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

All-22 footage showed several times early in the season that Bowe (and others) were wide open and Smith just ignored them.

Look, it's not all Smith's fault that the offense sucked early. He's also not completely blameless.

Yeah, I read that article and there were times that he was open and Smith didn't hit him. But about 1/2 those clips also presented pretty good reasons to not throw it to him. One he was clearly not the primary read and the primary read was open. Another had an easy first down throw early in the game that kept the offense moving forward and the defense off the field.

Cassel would've forced the ball to Bowe on all those clips and Bowe's reception/yardage numbers would've been better for it. That doesn't mean it would've been smart quarterback play.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

Well... like I said, much of Bowe's resurgence is because Smith/Reid are showing more faith in him. But there is just as much footage of Bowe wide open and missed as there is of Bowe getting a pass and completely dogging it. Both Bowe and Smith are to blame for his early season struggles.

There's very little chemistry between the two, there's no question.

And I know it's not popular opinion here, but it's incumbent upon the WR to earn the QBs trust. Smith can look at game tape from the Cassel years all day but it's still not going to earn Bowe the trust that simply performing on Sundays will.

Bowe jaked some routes in the early season and led directly to a couple of picks. There's little doubt in my mind that that stuck with Smith for several weeks. It's damn hard to get a QBs trust, especially one that's as naturally risk averse as Smith.

Now Smith needed to come back to Bowe and give Bowe a chance to earn that trust back. Catches like the early one he made in traffic on third and short against the Faid last week will help a lot, but it's still on Bowe to keep doing that and earn that trust.

Performance with past QBs won't do it, but the 'resurgence' of Bowe isn't because Smith's launching it downfield now. It's because Bowe's earning more of Smith's trust and its reflecting in his performance.

[BossChief]

Originally Posted by OnTheWarpath58

HEY ASSHOLE, WE WERE SUPPOSED TO GUESS!

I'm impatient.

[The Franchise]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

There's very little chemistry between the two, there's no question.

And I know it's not popular opinion here, but it's incumbent upon the WR to earn the QBs trust. Smith can look at game tape from the Cassel years all day but it's still not going to earn Bowe the trust that simply performing on Sundays will.

Bowe jaked some routes in the early season and led directly to a couple of picks. There's little doubt in my mind that that stuck with Smith for several weeks. It's damn hard to get a QBs trust, especially one that's as naturally risk averse as Smith.

Now Smith needed to come back to Bowe and give Bowe a chance to earn that trust back. Catches like the early one he made in traffic on third and short against the Faid last week will help a lot, but it's still on Bowe to keep doing that and earn that trust.

Performance with past QBs won't do it, but the 'resurgence' of Bowe isn't because Smith's launching it downfield now. It's because Bowe's earning more of Smith's trust and its reflecting in his performance.

I think Bowe has earned some more of Smith's trust but I think the targets he got in the Raiders game was because McCluster wasn't playing. Smith seems to trust McCluster more than any other target (outside of Charles).