Yup....ANOTHER Alex Smith thread....
I recently watched this video www.youtube.com/watch?t=90&v=GwxAqvHjIc4 of Alex Smith 2014 highlights but instead of just watching it and enjoying it, I decided to really study the damned thing and see if I could actually learn anything about Alex from it.
The big complaints about Alex have been that he can't or won't throw balls more than 5 yards beyond the LOS. I think most will agree that in a West Coast the offense's bread and butter pretty much comes down to the 5-7 beyond the LOS pass play with yards after catch being crucial. So first I watched this video to see how Alex is at throwing passes that travel 5-7 yards beyond the LOS in the air. Since this is a "highlights film there were plenty of them. The next question was how long does it take for Alex to get that sort pass out of his hands. The answer seemed to be 2-3 seconds from the snap to release. Certainly not the fastest gun in the West but not terribly slow by any means.
While watching I couldn't help notice that it showed Alex completing a substantial number of passes that traveled 15 or more yards beyond the LOS. I watched the vid 3 or 4 times and watched carefully to count them and was surprised to come up with a count of 12 including several that went more than 20 yards from the LOS in the air. Naturally, since in most of these long passes Alex was at least 7 yards behind the LOS when he released the ball that means these passes traveled at least 27 yards in the air (many of them more than that). So to me that shows he is AT LEAST capable of throwing longer passes. Next I watched to see how long it took him to get those passes out of his hands. Excluding plays where he scrambled before releasing the ball and paying attention only to long balls where he did a straight drop back and then promptly released the ball, the average seemed to be about 4-5 seconds. 2-3 seconds to drop back and survey the field and 1-2 seconds to plant his feet and release the ball. Again, not the fastest, but no slouch either.
So what does this all mean?
1) Alex is plenty capable of and willing to throw accurate passes that travel up to 30 yards in the air IF he gets 4-5 seconds to do it and IF he has a receiver who is at least close to open. Not WIDE OPEN but at least has a step on the defender.
So that suggests to me that the whole "noodle arm" claim is nonsense.
2) Since all the longer balls he threw in that video were to receivers who were open with at least a step on the defender that says to me Alex is cautious about throwing long balls. Conservative. Well....we all knew that. So our receivers need to get open. With Maclin, Dat and Conley we have added a lot of speed and "moves" so I think Alex will have A LOT more opportunities to throw longer balls since I *think* our receivers are going to do a better job of getting open this year. Of course that leads to TIME....
3) TIME....With Alex taking 4-5 seconds to get off any ball that goes much beyond 15 yards beyond the LOS we need an O-line that can get him those 4-5 seconds. Simply put the O-line MUST keep the pass rushers off his back for 4-5 seconds. If they don't, he's just not going to throw many completions that go in the air more than 7 yards beyond the LOS.
Now I realize that this was a "Highlights film" and is designed to show Alex at his best, but it ALSO shows us WHAT HE IS CAPABLE OF DOING and WHAT HE NEEDS to live up to his potential.
So in summary what I took from this film after watching it several times to really try to study Alex is that he can and will throw the long ball (not talking about 45 yards in the air) but that he wont do it unless he has a receiver who is at least somewhat open and he can't do it if he doesn't get AT LEAST 4 seconds to do it. So to my mind our mid-to-long ball game will depend on receivers getting at least a little separation (I think they can) and our O-line giving Alex 4-5 seconds before he gets pressured (they seldom did last year--hope they can this year. All in all, I'm cautiously optimistic we will have a MUCH IMPROVED mid-to-long range passing game this year.
Bookmarks