Where do you get off writing this? Less than 50% completion rate? Say what you want about preseason, but he does NOT look as lost as last year.
So your saying that he still looks lost? Fair enough, 55%, and I'm sticking to my comment about him giving us inconsistent QB, he is just not the guy. I hope I'm wrong, I want all the players on this team to succeed. It's just not there for me with Smith.
Can we change the title to Completion %? That would be a better representation. Really, He hasn't been all that accurate this preseason. There are a number of throws he's put right on the money, But for every 2-3 of those he's put one high or behind a WR. He's getting better,.. But I wouldn't go anywhere near that word with anyone on our team right now.
Geno definitely needs to improve on his longer passes before he an be in the ballpark of elite. If he can do that, the defense will have to play the long ball, giving an even better chance for the run game and shorter pass game to succeed. Right now, I'm liking what I am seeing overall from this team. They need to come out stronger in the beginning of games, and significantly improve on the 2 minute defense.
I actually think he's been better at decision-making than accuracy. Most of the time he's made the right read but he's missed some open guys for sure, and he'd better be a plus decision maker since the accuracy ain't improving in bad weather.
Completely disagree. His accuracy is nowhere near elite especially outside the numbers. His completion percentage has been mediocre and his deep ball accuracy has left much to be desired. I seem to remember multiple overthrows and underthrows to open receivers last year as well as in this preseason. Didn't he overthrow Nelson early in the Bengals game? I am going off of hearsay on that one as I did not see the play. He also needs to learn to dial in his throws rather than try to take the heads off his receivers. Where Geno was solid last year was his guts in the pocket. He has never seemed phased when a defender is bearing down on him and he's about to take a licking. That's something that can't be taught which is a good sign. Where he's improved considerably this preseason is understanding that his legs are a weapon and should not simply be used as a last resort. I'm sure he wants to prove he can be a classic pocket QB in the mold of Brady or Manning he seems to have realized that gashing the defense with his legs here and there opens up the field for the rest of the game. Man it's amazing what one solid preseason game do about a guy's perception.
Geno looks like he has learned/is improving on stepping up in the pocket. All stats aside, that's a really good sign and demonstrates the ability to learn the position.
Drives will definitely be extended multiple times throughout a game this year, due to Def Holding. I think we can expect those short 5-yarder automatic 1st Down penalties more than PI. I wonder if it is for this very reason that Idzik chooses not to invest big $ at the Cb position. But that's another argument for another thread.
I'm not sure if I would use the word elite, but Geno is already in the upper echelon of QBs making down field throws. He was in college too. Check out the 2012 WVU vs. Baylor game to see some of the best deep ball accuracy (and completion %, as he had more TD passes than incomplete passes in that game). Yeah...Baylor's defense sucked, but that really has nothing to do with how accurate his deep throws were. While he did start off kind of bad in the Oklahoma game, he finished very well. But the star that night was definitely Tavon Austin (if you want to see a one man show, look up his highlights from that night). One thing to mention about his college passing is that most of those deep balls were to Bailey, who he's been throwing to since the 7th grade. I know there are other articles out there about this, but this was the best one I could find quickly that shows that Geno is definitely in the upper echelon of QBs making passes of 20+ yards (and this is from '08-'13). http://regressing.deadspin.com/charts-who-are-the-best-deep-passers-in-the-nfl-1469917039 Again, I'm not saying he's elite, but accuracy has always been one of the better parts of Geno's game and I wouldn't put it high on the list of things that he needs to work on to be a better QB.
Completion Percentage isn't a perfect way to judge a QB's accuracy, but it is pretty much the only metric you can use to do so. Geno has thrown some balls not in the exact spot that it needs to be, but if he gets the ball to the receiver and completes the pass, then that's an accurate pass. Aaron Rodgers is the king of this. He will thrown balls high and he will throw some low, but close to 70% of the time his receivers haul in the passes because they were good enough and he got it to them fast enough.
I'm glad that Geno looked better so far this season...but really, how could he not? His play last year was terrible. I still see him with shaky footwork, late on throws and bailing out of the pocket too quickly. It's looks like he's reading defenses better and making better decisions...can he do that from under center this year? If MM still has him working predominately out of the shotgun to compensate, it eliminates a bunch of stuff out of the playbook. We ran a lot out of the shotgun late last year, but certain plays don't work without the qb taking the snap direct. Forget about play-action...Geno was league worst last year. It puts a serious hitch in our running game get-a-long...
He looks poor when throwing off balance? No shit. Every QB looks poor when throwing off balance. There is a reason why QB's in the NFL that constantly throw off their backfoot, and try to make passes while they are in the middle of getting sacked don't last very long. And you obviously didn't read the OP. My exact point was that I think he already has elite completion percentage / accuracy based on a whole lot more then just the preseason.
2013 Smith throws by alignment- Align Comp Att Comp% Yards YPA TD INT Drops Rate shotgun 204 358 56.9 2605 7.27 11 19 31 68 center 34 68 50 224 3.29 1 2 4 50.1 pistol 9 16 56.3 112 7 0 0 1 78.1
Really?? Let's see.... He led the big east in passing efficiency and was 17th in the nation. Against Baylor (a fairly decent college program) he went 45/50 for 8TDs, which seems pretty sharp. He is the all-time NCAA record holder for accuracy in a game when he went 23/24 against Kansas in wvu's finale before the bowl. And I'm sure he has a ton of conference records. I don't know where accuracy was a big issue for him in college.
Kind of. http://regressing.deadspin.com/charts-who-are-the-best-deep-passers-in-the-nfl-1469917039 This isn't perfect, but it shows Geno wasn't terrible at the deep ball. I think consistency was the problem. He could do everything in spurts last year, but struggled a lot to do it back to back drives and etc.
His accuracy is not NFL elite yet. The reason why Geno deserved Some lenience last year is because he had no weapons. As someone already pointed out, Kerl was out for a great deal of time. For a long stretch he was just playing with waiver wire refugees off the street. Now he has some weapons to work with and the poise he showed in college is starting to manifest at the pro level.
Baylor's secondary was awful and was ranked in the 100s in regards to passing defense. Every QB had a good day against that Baylor secondary. He's had good games no one is discounting that - if you look deeper for example his 2012 season 2nd half - you will see his struggles in regards to accuracy. In regards to your bold - that makes absolutely no sense. That's completion % and that statistic does not tell if you if a QB is truly accurate. I never said it was a big issue, I said it was erratic.
I don't think his low accuracy numbers were a result of throwing accuracy but rather a lack of understanding of NFL defenses/his own offense. The kid can sling it and put the ball just where he wants it, but often he didn't know where he wanted to put it. Same thing with the 21 picks, not a lack of accuracy, a lack of experience with handling NFL coverages. I think as he has time to adjust his accuracy numbers will naturally go up.
