Posts tagged AlexSmith at FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

Every spring in the weeks leading up to the draft, somebody gets a hold of the prospects' Wonderlic scores, the worst of the bunch are highlighted, and fans and media take a moment to point and gawk. But there's an argument that a player's Wonderlic results don't correlate to NFL performance. Maybe that's just a myth perpetuated by agents of low-scoring clients. Or maybe there's some truth to it.

San Francisco 49ers offensive coordinator Mike Martz offers support for the latter. In an interview with the Sacramento Bee's Matt Barrows, Martz lauds running back Frank Gore for his ability to quickly pick up the offense. As Barrows points out, Gore had a "low-low" Wonderlic score and some teams "worried about his dyslexia almost as much as they did his surgically repaired knees."

None of that matters to Martz, apparently:

Yesterday, MDS mentioned that 49ers head coach Mike Nolan is in no rush to pick a quarterback, but he did admit to being impressed with 2005 first-round pick Alex Smith, telling the San Francisco Chronicle that he's seen Smith "do things that I haven't seen him do before, in practice or in games."

Like getting rid of the ball before getting pancaked by a 220-pound blitzing safety. Novel idea. But here's the thing: as much as fans and the media like to give Smith the business, apparently, the offense's level of sucktitude had more to do with former offensive coordinator Jim Hostler.

The Press Democrat's Matt Maiocco learned earlier this week that San Francisco has now installed "hot reads" as a part of the overall offensive philosophy. Anybody with even a rudimentary understanding of Madden knows that a hot read is a route adjustment by a would-be pass catcher because the defense is showing blitz. The idea, simply, is for the quarterback to get the ball out of his hands, stat.

Thank God for Mike Martz, I guess. But Maiocco wonders why the team didn't implement it until now. Good question.

Good news, 49ers fans: It's only taken Alex Smith three years to do something impressive in practice.

Head coach Mike Nolan tells the San Francisco Chronicle that in recent practices, he has seen Smith "do things that I haven't seen him do before, in practice or in games."

Example? Actually recognizing when a blitz is coming and getting rid of the ball in a hurry. Great to know that Smith had already made $30 million or so from the 49ers before he learned that skill.

I point this out not to criticize Smith so much as to point out that the 49ers' three-way tie at quarterback among Smith, Shaun Hill andJ.T. O'Sullivan is a big mess. Nolan says he won't pick a leader right now, but it seems clear that he wants Smith to win the competition, even though Hill has been much more impressive on the field and O'Sullivan has a better grasp of coordinator Mike Martz's offense.

My money is on Smith winning the competition, playing badly in September, and being benched for Hill. And then the 49ers will start all over again by drafting a quarterback in 2009.

Another way of phrasing that headline would be, "Three Years After Going First Overall, Alex Smith Can't Beat Out Two Scrubs."

The news out of San Francisco is that Smith, Shaun Hill and J.T. O'Sullivan are all evenly matched at the quarterback competition, and that's a huge indictment of both Smith and the 49ers' brain trust for drafting him first overall.

Part of that brain trust, coach Mike Nolan, says that Smith and Hill will get equal time with the first-string offense during organized team activities, and he indicated that O'Sullivan will get fewer snaps mostly because he has already worked with new offensive coordinator Mike Martz.

Anyway, my money is on Hill, who looked much better than Smith last year, winning the competition. Which means we're probably heading into Smith's final season in San Francisco, and which means it's about time to label Smith a bust.

This will certainly come as good news to tight end Vernon Davis, who hinted during minicamp that he was frustrated with not getting the ball much during the 49ers' forgettable five-win 2008 season: Mike Martz has big plans for San Francisco's first-round pick in the 2006 draft.

(Still, it's pretty impressive that Davis ended up with 509 receiving yards on 52 receptions, including four touchdowns, when the quarterback position was far from settled.)

... Davis will likely have a big role in ... Martz's offense. We'll get to see Martz's creative side with his use of Davis' talents. Look for Davis to line up wide, in the slot and in the backfield before going in motion. But don't expect to see him turn into a full-fledged wideout. Davis is so valuable as a run-blocker that it is still imperative to have him line up a lot at tight end.

My first thought: why would Martz need Davis to run-block? Isn't that that why he got run out of Detroit? But then I'm reminded of two people: Marshall Faulk and Frank Gore. Faulk rushed for more than 1,300 yards four times in his career (and two times under Martz) and Gore is a dangerous weapon coming out of the backfield for the 49ers.

This is certainly welcome news for the Alex Smith contingent, but I should caution that we're just five days into May, so try to keep it all in perspective. After the team's three-day minicamp, Smith looks like the very early front-runner for the starting quarterback job.

You'd think this would've been decided some time ago -- Smith was the first-overall selection in the 2005 draft, after all -- but there have been extenuating circumstances. Smith had three offensive coordinators in his first three years in the league, and offseason addition Mike Martz, who replaced Jim Hostler, will make four.

Smith also suffered a shoulder injury last season, missed nine games, and gave Shaun Hill an opportunity he might not have otherwise had. And now, Hill, along with J.T. O'Sullivan, are competing against Smith for the stating job.

From the Press Democrat's Matt Maiocco:

OK, here it goes . . . but through my set of eyes, Smith looked the most impressive of the three quarterbacks during the five minicamp practices over the weekend. While neither Nolan nor offensive coordinator Mike Martz revealed their rankings, it was clear both men were impressed with what they've seen from Smith. (It was also clear that they feel good about the other two players, as well.)

So, basically, nothing will be decided until training camp. I think it's unfair (if not too early) to call Smith a bust, but if Hill, who was solid in a handful of starts last season, should win the job it won't be altogether surprising. At that point, though, the team will need to decide what to do with Smith because spending first-overall-pick money on a backup doesn't make a lot of sense. Even for a team that won four times in 2007.

TheDirty.com is absolutely on fire lately, in terms of giving us some controversial photos of athletes getting their party on. First it was NFL quarterbacks Matt Leinart and Alex Smith, yesterday it was Terrell Owens, and today it's retired Phoenix Suns great Dan Majerle. Thunder Dan is pictured hanging out with a young lady enjoying an adult beverage, and this supposedly took place at his restaurant. Not really a big deal, right? Until you learn, from this girl's Facebook page, that she's only 18 years old.

Majerle isn't doing anything wrong or seedy in these pictures necessarily, he's mostly just smiling next to this young lady, or receiving a harmless kiss on the cheek from her. But as you peruse the other photos TheDirty has to offer, you can clearly see this girl chugging down a few brewskis while still hanging at Majerle's restaurant, which could theoretically cause the place to lose its liquor license.

Now I understand that Majerle is likely not the one standing at the door or the bar checking people's IDs to make sure that they're of legal age. But as the restaurant's owner, these pictures certainly aren't going to be good for business, at least as far as the authorities in Phoenix are concerned.

Three years ago this weekend, Aaron Rodgers spent the better part of his Saturday sitting in the green room at the 2005 NFL Draft. He was expected to be a top-10 pick, but as it turned out, Alex Smith was taken first overall, and Rodgers spent the next six hours looking like Michael Vick had just murdered his dog.

The Packers finally ended the agony when they selected Rodgers 24th overall, and three seasons and one official Brett Favre retirement later, he'll finally get a chance to be the team's starting quarterback. And although a lot of draft nerds/experts weren't crazy about Rodgers coming out of California, opinions have softened. Take ESPN's Ron Jaworski, for example.

"I think he has gotten better, and I give him a legitimate shot of doing a solid job of replacing Brett Favre," Jaworski said ... "Hard to say you are ever going to replace Brett Favre. But he is going into a situation where they have a solid offensive line, excellent wide receivers, a very good running game and now a defense he can lean on. He will not have to win the game by himself."...

"I was not a big Rodgers guy," Jaworski said. "I liked him. I didn't love him. I thought it was a little bit of a reach in the first round when the Packers went and got him. I thought he did well in Jeff Tedford's system, which is a terrific system. But at that time, I did not see a lot of throws that projected to him having success in the [NFL]."

Lots of mock drafts and pundits have the 49ers taking a receiver in the first round. Based on the fact that mock drafts and pundits usually do their work on the previous season, that seems fair -- the receivers offered Alex Smith just about as much help as his offensive line did (which is to say, not very much).

But there's a problem with this way of draft prognostication -- it ignores player development and, uh, a little thing called free agency.

By adding Bryant Johnson and Isaac Bruce in free agency, the team has already improved drastically. Johnson is sort of anonymous to a lot of fans, because he played understudy to Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald thus far, but the former first-rounder has a ton of big-play ability. Bruce is ancient but can still offer a lot in the intangibles department and is a reliable target.

And then there's Jason Hill, a project receiver the 49ers took last year who has skills comparable to DeSean Jackson (one of the incoming rookies most linked to the 49ers). Hill had a rough rookie year (as do most projects) but has reportedly made tremendous strides. With the aforementioned duo and Arnaz Battle locked into the team's top three spots, Hill wouldn't be relied on for much and if he proves capable of doing that drafting a receiver early would be totally unnecessary.

Now Vernon Davis ... who knows what's up with that dude.

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Alex Smith (above) and Arizona Cardinals quarterback Matt Leinart had probably never heard of TheDirty.com a week ago, but they know all too well about it now.

Last week, an anonymous tipster e-mailed The Dirty pictures of Leinart partying at his home with Arizona State University co-eds. The story was, unsurprisingly, picked up by a number of blogs.

But then ESPN showed the photos on Around the Horn, Pardon the Interruption, SportsCenter and other shows. The Dirty -- with no journalistic standards, and little apparent interest in such standards -- got one of the biggest scoops of the NFL off-season.

And after The Dirty posted the above photo today -- which it says shows Smith partying in Mexico -- it's probably a matter of time before those turn up on ESPN, too.

So are sites like The Dirty the future of the sports media? In a phone interview, I asked one of the guys who runs The Dirty.