Anyone who had the (mis)fortune to catch the MNF thriller between the 49ers and the Cardinals in Arizona last night, should be in no doubt that if San Francisco is genuinely going to become a better team, they need a new Quarterback. Mike Singletary can show the team his bare ass all he likes - hell, he can turn round for an encore - but the team that he envisages the 49ers becoming will not work with any of the current signal callers on the active roster.
Singletary believes in a run-first offence that manages the ball and relies on it's defence to give them good field position. Of course, Defence is not the biggest worry right now for the niners, who are 22nd in the league in total yards against. If you think 22nd isn't good, ask yourself this: How many times have the Offence gone three-and-out this year? Enough times that the team should by rights have given up a mammoth amount of yards.
Unfortunately, the team cannot exist on a diet of J.T. O'Sullivan's fumbles, or Shaun Hill's laughably weak arm. Both have shown that their major deficiencies are not something that will easily be overcome, and that's why I believe there's a better than evens chance that Alex Smith, the no.1 overall pick in the 2005 draft, could be back with the 49ers next season.
First of all, the major obstacle: Smith's contract. He's due almost $10m, a figure that the team will balk at paying for a player who at best can expect a competition for the starting job next spring. On the other hand, if we assume that Smith can be brought back at a lower rate - perhaps under a restructured deal - it's highly likely that new coach Mike Singletary would opt to at least see what he has before making any snap decisions to bring in a veteran free agent, for example Cleveland's Derek Anderson.
If the team releases Smith, then attempts to sign him back at a more palatable salary for 2009, it's highly likely that at least one team would give Smith an opportunity to compete for a starting role. The Vikings, the Bucs, and perhaps the Lions could be interested in acquiring Smith in an attempt to see exactly how much of Smith's decline was his own fault.
And that leads me to my final point: It really isn't his fault at all.
The knock on Smith is that he doesn't have the mental strength to play in the NFL - but the guy has played under as many offensive coordinators as he has played years in the league, and he had the traumatic rookie season, during which he struggled mightily and threw just one touchdown. These two factors would affect plenty of Quarterbacks straight out of college, but that is no reason to give up on them completely. His fall has mainly been intertwined with that of head coach Mike Nolan, who realised midway through Smith's third year - where he suffered a shoulder injury that has only now been dealt with properly - that to save his job, he would need to win more games than he could afford to let Alex Smith lose for his own development.
Looking back to Smith's sophomore season under OC Norv Turner, there were plenty of signs that he was maturing and developing into an NFL calibre QB. His sack ratio was halved, and he threw 16 TD's and 16 INTs. He also threw for nearly 3000yds in a team that was not exactly overloaded with game winning receivers. All of this should really have counted for more than it did when Nolan effectively threw him under the bus after the shoulder injury, accusing Smith of lacking toughness for what transpired to be a potentially career-threatening injury.
So here's the deal: If you want to blame anyone for Alex Smith's woes, blame Mike Nolan. The sycophantic ramblings of Jamie Dukes on NFL Network's Total Access show last week as he eulogised Nolan (the in-studio guest) as a 'great coach' were completely against all evidence to the contrary that we saw in San Francisco. If anything, we saw a man who struggled to get the best out of high draft picks, who made rash comments about a young man learning his trade, and who realistically will next get a job as a Defensive coordinator somewhere around the league.
As for Smith, it would be rash to say he's the next Peyton Manning (More of Matt Ryan later), but he deserves at least one more shot at being a starter in the NFL, and if people read between the stat-lines, they might realise that there is potential still unharvested in the young man out of Utah.
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