skinsfaninok
03-26-2011, 03:39 PM
From KC Joyner "The Football Scientist" last summer
n Malcolm Gladwell's brilliant book "Outliers," he makes the case that while there are many factors that go into whether or not a person will be successful, the overriding factor seems to be opportunity. Gladwell shows how getting a lucky break and landing multiple long-term gigs in Hamburg, Germany, for example, gave the Beatles an opportunity to put in the necessary hours to hone their skills to an elite level.
He also notes how Bill Gates benefited greatly from the state-of-the-art computer lab his high school installed in 1968. Gladwell said that Gates admitted he was probably one of the few people in the entire world with access to the type of computer he was able to start using when he was 13 years old.
This mindset and focus on opportunity can also be applied to the case of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Alex Smith. The official word coming from the 49ers is that Smith will be the starter in 2010, but their frequent use of words like "confidence" and "comfortable", along with Jed York's comment that "we believe in Alex," combine to make it sound like they are at some level hesitant to give Smith more opportunities.
The odd part about this is there are multiple metric and statistical reasons to think that Smith is already among the top 50 percent of quarterbacks in the NFL.
Let's start with his performance in the passer rating category. Smith was able to post a rating of 88 or better in six of his 11 games last season. If we look at the rest of the league, we find that only 16 of the 32 qualifying quarterbacks (14 passes per game being the bar to rank to as a qualifier) bettered this total, but that doesn't take into account that every other quarterback ranking ahead of him on that list played in at least 14 games.
If we prorate Smith's percentage of games with an 88 or better mark (54.5 percent) over a 16-game season, it equates to roughly nine games. There were only 11 passers with more 88-plus games last year and that doesn't take into account that Smith could improve upon that mark as he develops his skills.
Smith also fared quite well in various passing yards per attempt (YPA) metric categories last season. His 13.4 deep pass (balls thrown 20-29 yards downfield) YPA ranked 11th in the league and placed him slightly behind Donovan McNabb (13.6) and slightly ahead of Peyton Manning (13.1).
It gets even better for Smith when looking at his 2009 bomb pass numbers (a bomb pass being an aerial thrown 30-plus yards downfield). Smith's 25.3 YPA mark here was the best in the league. There is a caveat in that Smith did throw only 11 of these passes, but it still bodes extremely well for what his statistics in this area could look like over the course of an entire season.
Even in the areas where he struggled last year, there is more than a little reason to believe he could show immediate significant improvement. The most compelling of these is his short pass totals.
The bad news on this front is that Smith's 5.4 mark in short pass YPA ranked 31st in the league last season, but that needs to be put into some perspective. The median short pass YPA last season was 6.4 yards, so adding merely one yard of YPA here would move Smith from near the bottom of the league to right in the middle. (It is also worth noting the three quarterbacks who posted the 6.4 median short pass YPA mark in 2009 -- Drew Brees, Matt Ryan and Manning.)
This is notable because it wasn't a lack of accuracy or even completions that stunted Smith's short pass YPA. His 75.7 percent short pass success rate (a metric that divides completions and defensive penalty pass plays into short pass attempts) ranked 16th in the league, or right in the aforementioned middle.
So if Smith's issue wasn't completions, what caused the short pass woes? There were multiple problems but one primary cause was Michael Crabtree. Crabtree gained only 169 yards on 39 short passes last year -- that's only 4.3 YPA. That total ranked him 85th of 88 qualifying receivers. Given Crabtree's superior college resume on short passes, it would come as a shock if he didn't see a huge jump in this number in 2010. If that happens, it alone could probably account for the half-yard improvement Smith needs in this area.
What all of this means is that Smith may already be in the midst of his Beatles/Hamburg or Gates/computer lab phase. If that is the case, it is worth noting one of Gladwell's other success components, which is the 10,000-hour rule. Numerous studies show that true mastery of a field does not occur until one puts in 10,000 hours of work within it.
The frequent changes made to the 49ers' offensive coaching staff during Smith's first five years in the league mean that he probably hasn't reached the necessary 10,000-hour benchmark under the current coaching regime. The numbers say it would behoove the 49ers to do all they can to get him to that mark as soon as possible. If they do, they might end up with one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.
He couldn't do anything under Norv so he still sucks imo.. sorry I just won't be convinced, rather have JC
n Malcolm Gladwell's brilliant book "Outliers," he makes the case that while there are many factors that go into whether or not a person will be successful, the overriding factor seems to be opportunity. Gladwell shows how getting a lucky break and landing multiple long-term gigs in Hamburg, Germany, for example, gave the Beatles an opportunity to put in the necessary hours to hone their skills to an elite level.
He also notes how Bill Gates benefited greatly from the state-of-the-art computer lab his high school installed in 1968. Gladwell said that Gates admitted he was probably one of the few people in the entire world with access to the type of computer he was able to start using when he was 13 years old.
This mindset and focus on opportunity can also be applied to the case of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Alex Smith. The official word coming from the 49ers is that Smith will be the starter in 2010, but their frequent use of words like "confidence" and "comfortable", along with Jed York's comment that "we believe in Alex," combine to make it sound like they are at some level hesitant to give Smith more opportunities.
The odd part about this is there are multiple metric and statistical reasons to think that Smith is already among the top 50 percent of quarterbacks in the NFL.
Let's start with his performance in the passer rating category. Smith was able to post a rating of 88 or better in six of his 11 games last season. If we look at the rest of the league, we find that only 16 of the 32 qualifying quarterbacks (14 passes per game being the bar to rank to as a qualifier) bettered this total, but that doesn't take into account that every other quarterback ranking ahead of him on that list played in at least 14 games.
If we prorate Smith's percentage of games with an 88 or better mark (54.5 percent) over a 16-game season, it equates to roughly nine games. There were only 11 passers with more 88-plus games last year and that doesn't take into account that Smith could improve upon that mark as he develops his skills.
Smith also fared quite well in various passing yards per attempt (YPA) metric categories last season. His 13.4 deep pass (balls thrown 20-29 yards downfield) YPA ranked 11th in the league and placed him slightly behind Donovan McNabb (13.6) and slightly ahead of Peyton Manning (13.1).
It gets even better for Smith when looking at his 2009 bomb pass numbers (a bomb pass being an aerial thrown 30-plus yards downfield). Smith's 25.3 YPA mark here was the best in the league. There is a caveat in that Smith did throw only 11 of these passes, but it still bodes extremely well for what his statistics in this area could look like over the course of an entire season.
Even in the areas where he struggled last year, there is more than a little reason to believe he could show immediate significant improvement. The most compelling of these is his short pass totals.
The bad news on this front is that Smith's 5.4 mark in short pass YPA ranked 31st in the league last season, but that needs to be put into some perspective. The median short pass YPA last season was 6.4 yards, so adding merely one yard of YPA here would move Smith from near the bottom of the league to right in the middle. (It is also worth noting the three quarterbacks who posted the 6.4 median short pass YPA mark in 2009 -- Drew Brees, Matt Ryan and Manning.)
This is notable because it wasn't a lack of accuracy or even completions that stunted Smith's short pass YPA. His 75.7 percent short pass success rate (a metric that divides completions and defensive penalty pass plays into short pass attempts) ranked 16th in the league, or right in the aforementioned middle.
So if Smith's issue wasn't completions, what caused the short pass woes? There were multiple problems but one primary cause was Michael Crabtree. Crabtree gained only 169 yards on 39 short passes last year -- that's only 4.3 YPA. That total ranked him 85th of 88 qualifying receivers. Given Crabtree's superior college resume on short passes, it would come as a shock if he didn't see a huge jump in this number in 2010. If that happens, it alone could probably account for the half-yard improvement Smith needs in this area.
What all of this means is that Smith may already be in the midst of his Beatles/Hamburg or Gates/computer lab phase. If that is the case, it is worth noting one of Gladwell's other success components, which is the 10,000-hour rule. Numerous studies show that true mastery of a field does not occur until one puts in 10,000 hours of work within it.
The frequent changes made to the 49ers' offensive coaching staff during Smith's first five years in the league mean that he probably hasn't reached the necessary 10,000-hour benchmark under the current coaching regime. The numbers say it would behoove the 49ers to do all they can to get him to that mark as soon as possible. If they do, they might end up with one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.
He couldn't do anything under Norv so he still sucks imo.. sorry I just won't be convinced, rather have JC