Why Does the Offense Work so Much Better with Smith than Haskins?

[MKnight82]

I'm curious what people's thoughts are on this.  I was hoping to have a detailed discussion and not just a lot of "Haskins sucks" talk.  These are just my observations but I would think these are the major reasons why:

- Haskins isn't familiar enough with the playbook so the diversity of plays we call with him under center is much smaller than with Smith.  Now Smith has no prior experience with this offense either, but as a Vet Smith has a lot more experience.  Haskins only started 1 year in college and hasn't done of ton of reps in the pros either, so you can definitely see how this would be lopsided against him.  You can see it when Smith is in there, that the playcaller is willing to call some big play shots with Smith that just don't develop when Haskins is in.  This conservative approach is probably because they don't trust Haskins to make the right decision due to him not knowing the plays that well.  You would think with hard work over time Haskins could overcome this.  

- Alex Smith has better ball placement than Haskins.  I'm not saying that Haskins is wildly inaccurate, but when you're playing at the highest level putting the ball a foot or two in one direction makes a big difference.  Smith does a good job of hitting his WRs and HBs in stride so that they can pick up YAC.  Haskins seems to rarely do this.  You see our guys having to make adjustment to catching his throws all the time.  This could be two things, one Haskins just isn't an accurate enough passer to hit those throws on a dime, or two, he doesn't know the plays well enough and is late to get the ball out.  Or worse case scenario its both.  I haven't been particularly impressed with Haskins ball placement his whole career so I think he could definitely have some accuracy issues that may not be fixable.  

- Haskins kills drive with negative plays and incompletions.  There's something to be said about 3 yard gains.  Alex Smith is the king of the 3 yard gain.  3rd & 1 is way different than 3rd & 10.  Smith can dink and dunk short completions for first downs, which pulls the defense off of the running game opening it up more.  That opens up our whole offense.  Haskins has a nasty habit of throwing wild incompletions on 2nd and long and giving us really bad options on 3rd down.  Important decision making for QBs isn't just avoiding INTs its gaining enough yards on early downs to make 3rd round easier to convert.  This also impacts the whole team, as a 3 and out on offense is about the worst thing you can do for your defense.  Long sustained drives keeps the opposing offense on the sidelines.  

 

Those are my main critiques right now.  Improving his knowledge of the playbook and gaining more game experience will fix some of this, but his accuracy issues bother me a lot.  I can't think of a single high quality NFL QB with serious accuracy issues.  

Edited December 14, 2020 by MKnight82

[turtle28]

[Thaiphoon]

Yeah. I'm with Turtle on this one. I think you nailed it. I'll chime in more later (going out right now), but your point 3 is a good one. Point 1 is also my first thought. Dude only had one season as a starter since H.S. Alex had 2 at the college level, and then was drafted high and has had a long NFL career. It is easier for him to absorb what an OC is trying to do than someone who doesn't have that experience. 

Not to mention that the book is out on Haskins that he had not been very studious about learning how to get better.

[ARTMONK HOF]

I agree. The offense looks smoother when Alex is in there. To me Dwayne is best when he throws the ball down field like he did at Ohio St. and not these 5 yard routes with hopes of a lot of yac. Dwayne has to conform to this offense, which isn’t his strength. IMO if they want Dwayne as the QB of this team this offense will have to change to showcase more of his skill set. 

[ovfd55]

Think you got it for most part

# major things to me seem to be

1.How Alex Adjust the offense you see him moving guys around and looks like flipping runs to sides with better run numbers.

2.How much faster Alex is with getting ball out of his hands on check downs,Haskins holds the ball a second longer allowing people to make it to the check down where Alex ha the ball in the flat before Lbers get there on Mikkisic

3.This might be my Haskins bias but feel like Alex get better play calling,that might be coaches not trusting Dewayne or him not being ready for but some of the play calls look off like the motion left,pa left Whole line goes left for a screen pass just looked like a horrible design I havn't seen before

[turtle28]

I’ll add the biggest thing to me is just consistency, Mknight touched on it, but Alex is consistent & on top of that his knowledge helps the WRs & TEs out to much as well. Alex is a coach playing QB at this point in his career. You see it with a lot of these veterans, like you see it with Drew, Brady, Big Ben, Rodgers, Rivers & even Mahomes who’s wise & mature beyond his years at football. When their young WR does something a little off that causes an incompletion, the go to them and talk to them about what they were thinking on that play and what they expected. 
 

Terry, Cam Sims, Isaiah Wright & Logan Thomas have talked about this over the last month in regards to Alex and how much he helps them; especially Cam & Isaiah. Those two guys are extremely raw, but they both say that Alex teaches them, knows what’s going to happen before it does based off his experience and he basically does the work for them. I think it was Cam who said Alex gives you the answers before the test in an interview after a game.

And that’s what you get out of a veteran cerebral QB that you don’t get out of Haskins who has the talent to be a good NFL QB but is still learning how to be a pro, learning the offense and frankly learning how to play QB at this level and all that goes into it.

Edited December 14, 2020 by turtle28

[offbyone]

I just hope we aren't comparing yesterday as Haskins hasn't even been taking reps.  Generally though, they have asked Alex Smith to run the baltimore game plan which Haskins executed just fine.  I don't really think we would see a vast difference if they ask Haskins to execute that game plan every week.  This week they asked Alex Smith to do more in terms of throwing the ball down the field and he was literally horrendous.  Not only could he not throw the ball, he made some bad decisions.  We can make calf excuses but he was bad bad.

IMO the difference is that Alex Smith not only knows the offense better, but manages the protection calls way better and moves in the pocket better. 

I think the both have inaccuracy options.  That was my constant complaint about Alex Smith in 2018.  Haskins has a considerably better arm, but one thing Alex Smith does better in terms of throwing the ball is he puts more air on it when appropriate.

[ripsean21]

The thing Haskins struggles with the most is to naturally move within or outside the pocket. He just hasn’t played consistently enough to know when to move or slide or just bug out. When I say bail he then thinks bail and it’s late. He’s thinking and it looks bad because in college he got comfortable and he just hasn’t since he’s been here. Another thing I tend to see with him is he want so much to squeeze a pass. But if he slid up and rolled left he’d move his passing lane and move the coverage off because the defender is behind and he could deliver a ball in a spot his WR can continue moving.
It’s his placement and he’s clearly thinking instead of it coming natural. Alex took a long time to learn how to move within and throughout as he used to hold the ball to long and throw too late. Until we see Haskins run a offense where you don’t know it’s run run pass it will be hard for him to progress. He also needs to push the football before he can consistently get those dump off RB screens and WR screens he loves to work. I always say if you can’t throw 15 or 12 outs into a basket on time you have nothing. If you can’t maneuver a pocket to hit that slant in between a zone without getting your WR killed you got nothing. he has every bit the arm any great QB in the league has. He legit has the tools to make every pass this league needs a guy to make.
Will he trust his guys to make the play and will he ever gain the presence to maneuver throughout the pocket or throwing on the move outside the pocket? That’s where we will find out. If he can let it rip and find confidence he can succeed. If he keeps throwing the sink and dunk and pads in the two minute drill he’s screwed. I do think he thrives better in a no huddle tempo as most guys can. But he has to make the ball progress 3-4 every down or tempo gets your defense in bad spots because you TOP is hurting. I liked this guy coming out understanding he was raw because the right coaches and he can shine with the cannon. But honestly the high this team is riding if he can’t channel that then you can’t win with him ever.

[ripsean21]

To add too that these guys just don’t move. We are just trotting our old day QB’s in a gameplan that would thrive with a mobile QB. You bootleg off those RPO’s and you have your high WR along with your check down running to your motion side and it opens things up. If you can make those zone throws and you can move the pocket on these plays you open the pass game up. We just run such a basic high low dump set but if your just sitting after 5 steps that high more then likely isn’t by the DB so your off that right before it opens up. So your on read two and you stare at it to long or he crosses late your check down RB is probably getting run down by the LB.

But when you can move natural or are comfortable inside the pocket you look at the one and either throw it out there to a spot or you move up or out to free up your check down or cross. We just don’t do these things with Haskins because he hasn’t moved comfortable. Haskins threw to Inman a lot. If he actually put the ball in safer places where his WR’s aren’t gonna get lit up I believe they make more plays for him. Having QB is more about just having a big arm. It’s about working on throwing guys open. It’s timing reps and trusting your OL and your OL knowing your moving the ball and not waistline their reps. If Haskins controls the huddle and just makes the plays infront of him and gives these pass catchers a catchable ball without leaving them to a DB we can keep going. If he doesn’t well our Defense is going to be in trouble against Seattle. Hopefully Gibson is in condition to plant and cut and run. Gibson is a piece Haskins will love

[lavar703]

-No off-seaosn

-New offense

-Lack of weapons

-Lack of experience overall

Haskins really took to KOCs playcalling and I got really worried when he left. I think at this point he just doesn’t fit this system and it’s best to move on. 

[Troublez]

1 hour ago, lavar703 said:

-No off-seaosn

-New offense

-Lack of weapons

-Lack of experience overall

Haskins really took to KOCs playcalling and I got really worried when he left. I think at this point he just doesn’t fit this system and it’s best to move on. 

I am not sure you can beat the "no weapons" drum any longer....

Gibson, Terry, Thomas, and Sims are decent.

[lavar703]

4 minutes ago, Troublez said:

I am not sure you can beat the "no weapons" drum any longer....

Gibson, Terry, Thomas, and Sims are decent.

Gibson and Terry are exceptional talents. Gibson wasn’t seeing much of the field when Haskins was starting and Cam Sims wasn’t even on the active roster. Thomas took awhile to start playing well. 

[naptownskinsfan]

9 hours ago, Troublez said:

I am not sure you can beat the "no weapons" drum any longer....

Gibson, Terry, Thomas, and Sims are decent.

Gibson was not available on Sunday and I have a sneaking suspicion that McLaurin was very limited when Haskins was playing, if not just out there as a decoy, due to injury. 

[RSkinGM]

1 hour ago, naptownskinsfan said:

Gibson was not available on Sunday and I have a sneaking suspicion that McLaurin was very limited when Haskins was playing, if not just out there as a decoy, due to injury. 

Yep, McLaurin's ankle is worse than they are saying . 

Edited December 15, 2020 by RSkinGM

[turtle28]

10 hours ago, RSkinGM said:

Yep, McLaurin's ankle is worse than they are saying . 

Well that’s 100% bc no steam ever reports injuries 100% accurately. Not that w deserved to know that Alex almost died of infection bc of his leg but the organization didn’t tell us anything about his rehab all 2019.