Alex Smith qb rating 104 with 49ers.Harbaugh knew not winning Sb with this guy traded him to chiefs. Smith had ironically 104 qb rating with chiefs.Next year traded to redskins. Both coaches knew they needed upgrade to get to next level and they were right.Tua is not elite! Qb rating is not be all and end of all of how good a qb is.
Yeah I get it, the metrics that you believe are the best predictor of winning were good...but the numbers were fool's gold. Those numbers weren't a result of Tua, they were a result of the offense. Tua was the result/beneficiary of a novel new offense with one of the fastest receiving corps in the league. Tua was just a cog, he didn't drive it. That's what I've been trying to explain to you for years.
This is a problem: Mike McDaniel - "I won't spend a moment worrying about my job security." Well you ****ING SHOULD BE.
Can't just replace Tua with most other QBs and get that kind of performance. That's why it does have a lot to do with Tua. Now Tua may be limited to a smaller range of offensive systems than a true "elite" QB, but he's not just a cog in a machine if he's hard to replace.
Please don't make me defend Tua, not with us having such a sh!tty season but there is more than enough of a sample pool to indicate that it's not JUST the offense. Tua has been injured enough times that no other quarterback could come in and run the offense with the same results. It's a symbiotic relationship. Did Tua benefit from this system of offense? Yes. Can ANY quarterback come in and run this offense with the same results? No, because if they could, we wouldn't have lost as many games without Tua as we did
On a cooler note, how sweet was that move Achane put on the defender after he caught that pass in the 4th where his TD was called back? I love this kid!
Its sad the position we are in.. where we may very well be 0-3 after Thursday night… but we may follow it up with 2 wins against the jets and panthers (bad teams) and now we are 2-3.. that middle side of not being good enough team to make the playoffs and actually be good in the playoffs but not bad enough to demand a rebuild.. that part is brutal as a fan. mcdaniels is way below .500 against winning teams. But he has a positive record against bad teams
Here's the thing though, the "machine" was built around this particular cog (Tua). Just like Tua may not be viable in any offense, this offense doesn't operate without Tua. I think McD called a decent game and got Tua going with screens and dump off passes; it slowed the rush and opened up the middle of the field. Because that's what we built this "machine" to do, let the speedy guys eat over the middle. When that's taken away, both the "cog" and the "machine" are limited. We supplement that with Achane, which is an excellent cog in his own right. But if a team can stop the run and defend the middle of the field, then we're in trouble and not going to adjust fast enough to compete. Again, I think the offense did well adjusting to find ways to make it work. It obviously wasn't enough though and it's going to be very hard to walk into Buffalo in a few days and expect a different outcome. Our secondary is in trouble and that's the most glaring problem.
Generally when people say a person is a "cog" in a machine they mean that person's role is relatively minor. That's not the case with Tua. He's very difficult to replace in the system McD implemented a few years ago where you need quick decision making combined with accuracy (at least in Tua's case to the 1st read). Not many QBs can do that. No, Tua is not a "cog" in a machine. And no I don't think McD called a decent game today. It took way too long for him to get away from conservative play calling. And of course our defense is just horrible.
I'll rephrase that- McDaniel started off horrible on the first few drives, but then made adjustments. A few of the Tyreek chunk plays were just "throw it up and let him beat the defender"...it's hard to credit anyone but Tyreek for that. I agree with the rest though, Tua is not "a cog"....he's "the cog". The wheel just doesn't turn without him, and McDaniel deserves credit for making an offense that Tua can thrive in. Still, I don't understand how he went from playing lights out a few years ago to hit and miss today. The offense is largely the same with our skill players...why the regression? I'm not asking you because I don't think anyone has a decent answer. It simply perplexes me how we can go from the hottest young offense in the NFL to a potential 5-win team. We have way too much talent.
