Here at Bleacher Report, whenever a slappy finishes composing yet another brilliant piece of prose, the "work" is only half over. After that comes the fun part, where you have to find and crop pictures, add witty captions to them, think up polls, and then select tags for what your story is about.
It's a time-consuming process that saps not only your desire to write in the future, but also your will to live—and you do it for free!
Seeing as how I cover the 49ers, I've had occasion to mention one Alex Smith a time or three. Yet whenever I type the words "Alex Smith" into the tag box, the only option the magic doohickey spits back at me is a tight end for the Philadelphia Eagles.
This is problematic for a number of reasons.
One, that Alex Smith actually played for Cleveland this season, not Philadelphia. His lone reception on the season, for six yards, came last week against the Steelers.
Two, and slightly more important, Alex Smith, the first overall selection of the 2005 draft and a guy who's started 50 games for them over the past six seasons, including ten games each over the past two.
Now Bleacher Report wouldn't be the first organization to confuse the two gentlemen. The other Smith, who went to Stanford, also came out for the draft in 2005, and the Detroit Lions, back when Matt Millen was their general manager (of course) had some interest in him.
There was a snafu in dealing with agents or whatnot, and the Alex Smith they invited to their complex for an interview was our Alex Smith, then a hotshot quarterback prospect from Utah.
Smith, the quarterback, could tell by the puzzled faces of the Lions' official who greeted him that something was amiss, and he didn't understand why they'd invited him in the first place, since they'd drafted Joey Harrington in the first round just three seasons before.
The embarrassed Millen rushed Smith through a quick half hour interview before thanking him for his time and sending him back to the airport. In a completely unrelated story, Millen gets paid handsomely to analyze football for ESPN and the NFL Network now after the Lions let him go for being the worst general manager of anything in recorded history.
So yes, mistakes happen in this business, but Bleacher Report's tag registry has no record of Alex Smith, quarterback.
If there's a better way to encapsulate his 49ers career, I'd love to hear it. Whoever designed the program is surely a bitter, frustrated Niners fan.
And wasn't Sunday's 38-7 obliteration of the inept Arizona Cardinals just so typical of both Smith in particular and the 49ers as a whole?
Just when their fans finally wouldn't mind one last crummy performance, just so they could richly boo Smith for six seasons of not being Joe Montana—or even Aaron Rodgers—he goes out and plays great, throwing for more yards (276) than he ever had in a victory and two long touchdown passes.
Finally when the 49ers had incentive to lose, so they could get a better draft pick, they win and do so in convincing fashion, one last seed in Team President Jed York and GM-in-waiting Trent Baalke's collective noggins that, "See, we were pretty good after all, if not for one or two breaks..."
All season long, and really over his entire career, Smith played it safe, checked it down to his backs the moment his first read was taken away, and took the humble four yard gain on third-and-12.
Then, when it didn't matter, he's slinging it downfield every play like Michael Vick.
Even the defense, so careful the whole season to not risk anything or expose their plentiful weaknesses in the back end were going for broke, flawlessly executing zone blitzes, corner blitzes, safety blitzes, throwing everything but the locker room hot tub at the poor over-matched Arizona quarterbacks.
Where was this all season?
Why couldn't any of them play worth a damn, or even take a chance to when it mattered?
Just about every player in the locker room on the way to what could be an endless off-season criticized deposed coach Mike Singletary in that passive-aggressive way athletes rip people no longer in their room.
Defensive tackle Ricky Jean Francois said the team was never prepared for any situations that arose during games and therefore crumbled whenever they faced some adversity.
Brian Westbrook said he was "wasting away on the bench."
Even Vernon Davis, who credited Singletary for turning him around as a player, said he fostered an environment where the team could never have any fun and everyone was too afraid of the coach's wrath to play football.
In short, they all blamed him.
The fans do too, and rightly so, but they also blame Smith. Also rightly so.
Here's the thing though. Smith started the year poorly, in part because Michael Crabtree submarined the whole team by not being ready to play until October, but he had nine touchdown passes to one interception over the final 11 games of the season with a 93.5 passer rating.
He finished the season with a 82.1 rating overall, and that figure was not only a career-high, but also the best of anyone in the division. St. Louis wunderkind Sam Bradford posted a 76.5.
In case you're curious, Donovan McNabb had 77.1 and Shaun Hill had 81.3.
Smith isn't lying or delusional when he says that he's still young and that he's been steadily improving. He will have suitors on the free agent market, perhaps even in the NFC West, and he'll still start plenty of games in this league.
Ultimately, both Smith and Singletary failed each other.
Singletary trusted him enough to be his starting quarterback going into the season and made sure he would have no meaningful competition for the job during the preseason. He thought he was doing Smith a favor by taking the pressure off, and making statements like, "the quarterback isn't the most important position on offense," and "he's just one of eleven."
When Smith was playing badly, Singletary had no idea what to do or how to coach him. Technically he couldn't offer any advice, so he was left to yelling at him to play better.
Smith, on the other hand, was chosen over Rodgers by Mike Nolan specifically because he was obedient and respectful. Because he was less prone to improvising or having a wild hair up his nose.
He was too nice of a guy, and he never figured out—still hasn't—that that doesn't work at this level.
What Smith needed to do was challenge Singletary, a neophyte about offensive football, and put him in his place.
In training camp he should've told him, "You don't have to respect me, but you have to respect my position. Enough of the one of eleven crap. I'm the damn quarterback of this team. If I don't play well, you're gonna get fired."
During the season, Smith should've specifically made it a point to Singletary to explain which plays and formations he likes, which ones he doesn't like, and told his coach what he thought of his conservative tactics.
In the games he needed to call out linemen who missed blocking assignments or receivers who ran the wrong routes, he needed to drive the point home to everyone in that huddle that what they're doing has meaning and purpose.
Finally, the first time Singletary screamed at him in the game, he should've screamed back and made it perfectly clear: "Unless you have a specific, technical coaching point you can offer me that goes beyond 'Don't throw interceptions,' leave me alone and worry about the linebackers."
I believe that not only it wouldn't have been disrespectful for Smith to do these things, but that Singletary wanted him to. When Singletary talked about a lack of leadership on offense, he was challenging Smith's ability to organize the group and rally them toward a cause.
It's just not in Smith to act that way though, or to even think that way.
Can Smith succeed anywhere, in any situation?
He could, but he'd have to play for a team that has established, professional, and talented players around him on offense and a smart, inventive offensive coach who believes in him. Teams in that position usually have capable quarterbacks in house.
Still, almost anyplace Smith goes will be more stable and nurturing than this environment, where for six years he's had to deal with horrific coaching, bad offensive lines, ham-fisted receivers, and bumbling ownership.
Hopefully when he signs somewhere else, the fellas around here will get wind of it.
Source: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/560841-49ers-fans-wont-have-alex-smith-to-kick-around-anymore
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