OneMind

Jason Kottke has a good piece on how the various media outlets' predictions of the just-ending NFL season came out. Overall, not so hot. The best record belonged to CBS, Sporting News and USA Today.  Fans (in the Yahoo! crowd) did better than Sports Illustrated, ESPN and Fox Sports.

Kottke's methodology for deciding how predictors fared was pretty good. He exlpains it in the post.

Interestingly, Vegas odds were no better than middle-of-the-pack.

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I don’t follow college football very closely any more. For many years, I preferred the NCAA’s brand of the sport to the NFL’s glitzy package of predictability but after I stopped living in a college town, my interest waned. I do, however, try to keep a Heisman Watch most seasons. And because I’m not a fan of a particular college or conference, I think I’m generally pretty objective in my assessment of top college talent. I’m also traditionally lousy at predicting the outcomes.

This season, there has not seemed to me to be a clear leader of that elite pack. This morning, San Jose Mercury News sports columnist Mark Purdy changed all that. This morning, I jumped on the bandwagon of Stanford University running bck Toby Gerhart. To find out why, you should read Purdy’s column explaining why everyone – at least in the Bay Area — should want this young man to walk away with the classically posed trophy Saturday night at the New York awards ceremony. Not only is he arguably the best player in college football (as he amply demonstrated in the Cardinal’s season-ending game at Notre Dame on national TV), he’s a superb student, multi-talented (and multi-sport) guy, and scion of an All-American small-town family right out of Central Casting. His story is so enchanted and enchanting, that, as Purdy says, Hallmark’s Hall of Fame would reject the script as too good to be true.

My guess is that Gerhart doesn’t have a realistic shot. West Coast schools are always downplayed on the national scene, largely because time zone differences mean that East Coast sports writers, who hold all the sway in such matters, seldom get to see outstanding players from the Left Coast. When it comes time to cast ballots, they focus on the candidates from the East and MIdwest whom they’ve watched on TV or seen play live. Nearly equally important, I am sure, is the overactive hype machines that crank up before each NCAA gridiron season to tout Heisman candidates. Gerhart had no such machine at his disposal. And yet he made it to the Final Five. So while I don’t think he has a real shot at the trophy, I’m going to be pulling for him nonetheless. Read Purdy’s column and maybe you will be, too.

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The best thing you could say about Alex Smith in tonight’s
defensive-minded 10-6 win over the Chicago Bears is that at least he’s
not Jay Cutler.

The Bears’ signal-caller threw five — count ‘em, 1-2-3-4-5!! — picks
in tonight’s loss, two of them in the end zone on red zone plays,
neither of which should have been thrown in the first place. Wow. NFL
Network broadcaster Matt Millen (former GM of the sad-sack Detroit
Lions, doormats of the Bears for decade after decade) kept
characterizing Cutler as “the guy they brought here for this
situation.” And he fizzled. Time and time again.

Smith’s performance brought new meaning to the word adequate. He did
just enough right to win the game and end the Niners’ four-game losing
streak but it was nothing to write home about. Smith was 16 of 23 for
118 yards and one interception for a 68.3 QB rating. He’s strictly
middle-of-the-pack statistically speaking in the NFL, which is just
not good enough to get his team to the playoffs this year.

Frank Gore had a respectable night, going 104 on the ground in 25
attempts. He had one scary fumble which was fortunately recovered by
the Niners who just never got their offense untracked. Yeah, the
Bears’ D was pretty darned good tonight but nothing special or
outstanding. The crimson-and-gold are going to have to tighten their
chin straps a notch and get focused if they expect to end up above
.500 this year and have a shot at making the playoffs.

Oh, and FWIW, the NFL Network coverage was technically disrupted with
no broadcast booth sound for most of the first quarter. When the sound
did come back, we got to listen mostly to Millen, who is such a
defensive-minded veteran that you’d have thought it was the defenses
that score all the points in the game. No wonder he couldn’t cut it in
Detroit.

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Well, it appears that the San Franiso 49ers’ oft-injured and badly managed quarterback Alex Smith probably saw his prospects for a recovered career come to a crashing halt today. Making some of the poorest throwing decisions I’ve witnessed in many years of watching the game, Smith threw away opportunity after opportunity as the Niners managed to lose to the lowly Tennessee Titans.

Smith, who’s been as badly handled as any No. 1 draft in NFL history by a team with fewer football smarts than any but the Oakland Raiders and the Detroit Lions in the past half-dozen or so years, threw three crucial interceptions. Only one of them was a bad throw that led to a clean pick; the other two were tips that were picked off in mid-air by Titan defenders. But none of those passes should have been thrown at all. They were into double coverage. They were on poor trajectories. Smith also held the ball too long on several other occasions. In general, he did the kind of job you’d expect from an inexperienced quarterback. Trouble is, that excuse has been used on his behalf for five years. He is now destined to be dumped into the dustbin of history along with other highly disappointing first picks.

It is clear that Smith is not the QB of the future for the Niners. It only remains to be seen if he can become the QB of the present. So far, as a starter of late, he’s strung together six straight losses.

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The San Francisco Giants ended their season with a record of 88-74. Only four teams in the entire National League had better records. Unfortunately for them, two of those teams were in their Western Division, so they missed the playoffs. But in a year when I frankly didn’t expect them to do much better than .500, that’s a pretty terrific season.

Meanwhile the San Francisco 49ers are 3-1 after a 35-0 shellacking of the winless St. Louis Rams. They could and probably should be 4-0 but for some inept late-game decision making in Week 3. But I’m still holding back from getting too excited about them. Three of their wins have come in their undeniably weak division and today’s W wasn’t really much of a test. But it’s worth noting from the big victory today that:

• The defense came into its own, not only shutting down the Rams and Steven Jackson (who was held to 79 yards on the ground and one catch for six yards), but scoring 14 of the points.
• Special teams accounted for another seven, which is great but it means the Niners offense, against a pretty pathetic Rams D, managed only 14 points. That’s not encouraging. Shaun Hill was better than his stats (14/24 for 152 yards) indicated; he had at least three dropped passes that clearly should have been caught, one of them for an easy six.
• Playing without the backbone of the offense as Frank Gore continues to nurse his injury, Glen Coffee picked up 74 rushing yards, which is below fans’ expectations for him but he shows steady improvement.
• The team attitude was really upbeat despite coming off an ugly and unnecessary loss at Minnesota last week. Coach Mike Singletary obviously has these guys thinking differently.

Next week’s test is a little stronger as the Niners host the 2-1 Falcons who are coming off a bye week.

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The San Francisco 49ers, about whom I have blogged incessantly for years until last season and who are my remaining sports passion, are off to a remarkable 2-0 start. They are one of only nine teams in the 32-team NFL to do so. What’s more, both wins have come within their division, which is a huge leg up for them. During Sunday’s game, one of the commentators suggested this lead might already be insurmountable, proving how little he knows about the league. WTF?

It is true that 65% of all the teams who started a season at 2-0 ended up in the playoffs. It is also true that last year, that trend continued a recent-years reversal as a tiny minority of 2-0 teams made it to the championships.

Shaun Hill may be a better QB than I thought, though I think it’s awfully early and I also think his 2-0 record is a lot less due to his slightly-better-than-mediocre performance than it has to do with the improved run-pass mix on offense imposed by Mike Singletary and his coaching staff. Without a star-quality quarterback or a polished defense, it’s not likely any team makes it to the playoffs. Or maybe I’m just trying really hard not to get my hopes up this early in the season again.

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In yesterday evening's pre-season matchup between the 49ers and the Raiders, Alex Smith out-shone Shaun Hill, I thought. The two are locked in a dead heat for the starter job and this was the second week the coaching staff had given both of them equal time behind center.

Smith was 3/9 for 30 yards and had one interception (arguably not his fault). Hill was 3/7 for 20 yards. Neither threw for a TD. In the ridiculous world of NFL QB ratings, Smith ended up with an impossibly ugly 4.2 while Hill "earned" a 50.3 rating. But just watching the two operate the offense, Smith seemed more poised, he made better tough decisions, and he seemed more confident than Hill, who as last year's starter while Hill was injured  should have the inside track.

Clearly one pre-season game isn't all that meaningful; despite the desperate hype offered up by the TV broadcasters, this wasn't a "must impress" game for Alex. And although I evaluated him higher than the incumbent, it is certainly true that he'll have to do a lot better than be in a dead heat with Hill to win back the starting position.

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