Bill Walsh, the only San Francisco 49ers head coach of any significance, used to have a saying about Steve DeBerg, his starting quarterback before Joe Montana took over the reins for good halfway through the 1980 season.
DeBerg, he said, was “just good enough to get you beat.”
He wouldn’t ever embarrass you. He wouldn’t get you blown out. However, DeBerg had this maddening way of playing up or down to his level of competition, and always making a critical mistake, whether it be an interception, a fumble, or a more innocuous screw-up like a bad read or a poor throw to a wide open receiver.
By hook or by crook, the guy just found a way to lose, and eventually he sapped the confidence of the team around him as well. Walsh went 2-14 with DeBerg in 1979 and finally gave him the hook for good when Montana was ready.
Fast forward 31 years.
Is Alex Smith the next generation Steve DeBerg?
The evidence against him is certainly damning. In 42 career starts he’s 16-26, and his career totals include 38 touchdown passes to 47 interceptions, and a QB rating of 69.0.
Of course there are extenuating circumstances. He played on the equivalent of a CFL team, talent-wise, his first season and a high school team, coaching-wise, for the first three-and-a-half years.
He’s played games with a separated shoulder and had to learn a new offense for each of his first five seasons.
The good news: He finally got to settle in with the same offensive coordinator for two consecutive years this offseason.
The bad news: It was Jimmy Raye, whose claim to fame was putting the ball in Eric Dickerson’s gut over and over and over again for the 1984 Rams. Not that it got them anywhere, mind you.
So yes, Smith has had more obstacles to overcome than a blind 110-meter hurdler. Still over the course of his career, there has been a disturbing pattern where his best games statistically have come in losses and that the majority of his scant wins have come not because of the passing game, but in spite of it.
Consider that the most yards he’s ever thrown for in a win is 233, on Nov. 17, 2006, where the Niners beat St. Louis, 20-13 at the ‘Stick. He completed half of his 22 attempts that day.
The only 300-yard passing day of his career came in a 20-17 downer last Dec. 6
at Seattle.
Meanwhile, he has a 1-2 mark in games in which he’s thrown for three scores. He’s never thrown more than three.
All offseason Head Coach Mike Singletary, and Raye, his trusted lieutenant, promised we’d see a different Smith in 2010, and through two games they’ve been mostly wrong.
Week 1 at Seattle was an abomination of wasted timeouts, failed red zone opportunities, and unqualified disaster whenever he aimed a pass at Michael “L’enfant Terrible” Crabtree.
Week 2, against the defending champion New Orleans Saints, had fewer wasted timeouts, so there’s that.
The problem with this analogy is there is no current Montana on the roster, unless you really want to up sell practice squad marvel Nate Davis, so by default, the 49ers are stuck for or better or worse with Smith for the rest of this season at least.
Really, from the Niners perspective, there wasn’t much more they could’ve done in the game. The offensive line was sensational, despite having two starters (center Eric Heitmann and right guard Chilo Rachal) missing due to injury and starting two rookies in first round picks Mike Iupati out of Idaho and Anthony Davis from Rutgers.
Not only did they create many openings for Frank Gore, but they never allowed Smith to be sacked even once, no matter how many different stunts and zone blitzes Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams dialed up.
For his part Gore (20 carries for 112 yards, seven receptions for 56 yards, and two touchdowns) showed excellent patience in waiting for his blocks to develop and was other-worldly with his cutbacks, leaving scores of hapless Saints in his wake.
It’s not like the 49ers spread the Saints out to spring Gore. Often they lined up with a fullback, or two tight ends, or both and simply dared New Orleans to stop them.
“We whupped their behind up and down the field,” Gore said in the somber locker room afterward. “They can’t stand up with us. And we beat ourselves for the second week in a row.”
Although 417 yards from scrimmage doesn’t sound like an ungodly amount, it’s the most the 49ers have ever totaled with Smith under center, topping the 416 they accumulated in a 20-14 win over the Seahawks on Nov. 19, 2006.
While his final numbers (23-of-32, 275 yards, one touchdown, two interceptions, 82.2 QB rating) don’t look that great, there were stretches where the casual fan had to wonder which passer in the game, him or Saints QB
Drew Brees, was awarded the Super Bowl MVP last February.
At one point between the final play of the first quarter—a 13-yarder to wideout Josh Morgan—and a seven-yard dump-off to Gore with 1:40 to go in the third, Smith had completed 14-of-15 passes. The back-to-back completions to Crabtree and Davis during the go-ahead drive were as fine passes as any quarterback made last week.
Not only did he look decisive, accurate, and show plenty of zip on the ball, Smith even demonstrated the athleticism he displayed as a junior at Utah—when he ran for 631 yards and 10 touchdowns—with a pair of 12-yard scrambles during the game-tying drive late in the fourth quarter.
It’s fair to say that in his past dozen starts, Smith has shown flashes of why the 49ers made him the No. 1 overall pick of the 2005 draft. In some games these flashes have lasted a half. In others, those flashes were only for a handful of minutes here and there.
It’s also accurate to state that he’s yet to put 60 solid, consecutive minutes together, just like DeBerg never could back in the day.
To his credit, he took the loss hard afterward. I believe that’s a good sign.
“All that yardage, coming away with only 22 points...in my mind, the three times we were down in the fringe (of the red zone), at minimum you have to walk away with some field goals there,” he said. “In the worst case you’re at 31 points.”
It was a disheartening loss to be sure, but what the 49ers can take away from this is that they are without a doubt the best team in the NFC West, even though they are 0-2.
They certainly were unfortunate against New Orleans, where they dropped two interceptions, had a pair of deflections turn into picks, and muffed a punt. Brees caught his own deflection and turned it into a seven-yard gain, while Bush recovered his muff.
Loser teams whine about bad luck. Good teams say they make their own luck.
We won’t know how this game affects Smith and the Niners, for good or bad, until Sunday at Kansas City. There didn’t seem to be any communication issues between Smith and Raye on Monday, but it was a home game.
The coaches did decide to shorten the play calls by listing them all on a laminated wristband that Smith wore, where each of the 180 or so plays in the gameplan had a corresponding number. It made the process of relaying in calls to him decidedly more concise.
Still, Arrowhead is almost as raucous as Seattle’s Qwest Field and the Chiefs fans will no doubt be euphoric about the team’s 2-0 start.
Are the 49ers ever going to discover how to get luck on their side and eliminate their bonehead mistakes, or are they going to be one of those snake-bit squads that finds new and excruciating ways to lose week after week?
Time is running out for Smith to prove himself, but win or lose it would behoove him to play well in front of the folks in Kansas City.
After all, DeBerg played for the Chiefs for four years, before Montana replaced him again.
