Sometimes executives are the best at sugar-coating a situation and sprinkling BS on it. The San Francisco 49ers replaced quarterback Alex Smith with Colin Kaepernick, because Smith frankly had hit his ceiling.
Kaepernick has now led to Niners to a Super Bowl and Smith is looking for his immediate release. If you ask owner Jed York, he’ll say not so fast.
York dismissed Smith wants to move on, and brashly stated to Pro Football Talk that he’d like to keep both Smith and Kaepernick.
“I hope he’s with us,” York said. “From a cap standpoint, we have the room to be able to keep him. One quarterback is usually not enough to get you through a season. And to have two guys which the Niners had in Steve [Young] and Joe [Montana] for a long time, there’s no reason why you can’t have two guys on your team. And I hope we can find a way to make that happen.”
York was asked about what he would if and when Smith would ask for his release, seeing that he wants to play.
“He hasn’t made the request yet, and that’s something we’ll assess at end of the season,” York said. “I think Alex has been very clear, he’s been very up front, he’s been very professional throughout this whole thing. And he’s still a captain of the 49ers. And I think Alex deserves the opportunity and figure out what he wants to do at the end of the season.”
York dismissed the notion also that Smith lost his job to injury, and simply stated Kaepernick was basically the better player and outplayed him.
“I don’t know that I would say Alex lost his job due to injury,” York said. “I think Kaep stepped up and played. And he got his opportunity and he took the most of his opportunity. It’s easy to say, ‘Well he lost his job because of injury.’ That’s not necessarily the case. And you need to understand that if you do go out there and play with a concussion, you might lose your career. And whether Alex is playing for us or he’s playing somewhere else next year, Alex has another 10 to 15 years to play in the National Football League because he was safe and he didn’t put himself in a position where he ended his career early.”
I know one thing, and that’s that Alex Smith handled himself like a pro, and could have totally disrupted and destroyed everything that team was building.
No one plays the game to be a backup, so young Jed York has lost his mind if he thinks winning will trump the desire to play.