I don’t blame Mike, I blame Alex
Mike Singletary his been getting some heat for yelling at Alex Smith Sunday night, and for the 0-5 start the Niners have been suffering through. I think the problem isn’t whether or not Mike is an x-and-o guy or not, it’s with the man behind center. Alex Smith, in case we all forgot, is a mediocre quarterback. For the season he has thrown for 1,229 yards, 6 touchdowns and 9 interceptions, for a passer rating of 71.6. And half the touchdowns came in one game! To be blunt, that sucks. And it’s not like this is just a bad stretch for him. This is his career. He’s just good enough to lose for you.
Smith was drafted in 2005, and since then has been bad more than he’s been good. He’s not totally untalented, but it should be obvious at this point that he is not a 16 game starter for a team that looking to make a playoff run. He took over a 3-2 team last year, and even with the best statistical performance of his career could only lead them to a 5-6 finish. If his best can only get you a 5-6 record over 11 games, how can you possibly trust him over a full season? How can you, in a game when your defense held the Colts to 18 points in Indy, come up short (198 yards, no points in the second half) and call yourself a good quarterback? That’s just one example, but good quarterbacks don’t squander those types of opportunities all the time like Smith does.
The 49 er players apparently support Smith as their starting quarterback, and don’t want David Carr to get the job. Fine, that’s great. Carr isn’t very good either. And it’s very likely that both Smith and Singletary will be gone after this season. Both don’t blame the coach for this; blame the guy throwing the ball. He got Mike Nolan canned two years ago and he’ll do the same for Singletary if things don’t change really quickly.