Kaep Dance: How Alex Smith Lost His Job to Colin Kaepernick

Alex Smith will likely be doing a lot of watching the rest of 2012.

In a way, I feel bad for Alex Smith.

After a rocky start to his 49ers career which featured just as many offensive coordinators & systems as seasons played, Alex finally got into his groove with head coach Jim Harbaugh and offensive coordinator Greg Roman.

That triad of offensive folks has been an integral part in the sudden reemergence of a Niners squad that struggled to find offensive consistency in Smith's first six seasons on the team. Before the game in which Smith suffered his concussion against the Rams a couple weeks back, Smith was riding a hot streak with Harbaugh that he had never had before in his career. Including the 2011 playoffs, Smith helped lead the Niners to victories in 20 out of 26 games in the Harbaugh era (not including the tie, a game which he didn't finish).

However, he has been given the label "game manager" by many people. He has completed 64% of his regular season passes in the 25 regular season games in the Harbaugh era, but averaged under 200 yards a game (hardly a number that a great QB would average).

Then again, Smith was never supposed to be the key ingredient in 49ers success in the Harbaugh regime. A combination of a ground-and-pound with Frank Gore and play action has minimized the risk element that passing games can sometimes create (Smith had a league-low 1.1% of his passes intercepted last season).

With such success, why was Harbaugh so quick to oust a healthy Smith only to kick-start the career of Colin Kaepernick, who the Niners drafted in the second round of the 2011 draft?

It's quite simple - Harbaugh has wanted to move on from the Alex Smith era since he got to San Francisco

• Drafting of Kaepernick in 2011 2nd round, not a round where you normally draft QBs to be long-term understudies/back-ups. One of the first picks made in the Harbaugh era was the drafting of Kaepernick, who excelled in the pistol offense in his prestigious career at Nevada. At the time, Smith had been struggling to find consistency behind center. You could blame the coaches who couldn't maximize his talents (as Harbaugh has), the turnover of offensive coordinators in his tenure, the lack of talented targets that he has been surrounded with.
  
  For whatever reason, Smith has clicked for the Niners. Still, drafting Colin ultimately meant that Smith's days were numbered, even if he had as great of a run as he has now. The timing of the concussion allowed Harbaugh to insert Kaepernick into the starting lineup without ruffling the feathers of fans and media members who would have been puzzled and pissed off if Smith was demoted without seeing Kaepernick play.
  
  Sure, Harbaugh could have started the 2012 season with Kaepernick, but perhaps this was the easier way for him to insert Kaepernick into the lineup. Not as much fuss.
  
• Harbaugh flirted with Peyton Manning in the 2012 offseason. He may try to BS to the media and tell them he didn't want Peyton, but let's be real - Harbaugh wanted Peyton. He went to see Peyton's workout in March, only to be shunned when Manning chose the Denver as his next destination.
  
  During that time, Alex Smith didn't really field any serious offers from other teams. So when the Manning thing fell on its face, Harbaugh did an about-face and said Smith was their plan all along. The only way he's not legitimately BSing about this is if he thought Manning was not destined to be a Niner when he went to see him. Otherwise, Harbaugh was doing what most coaches would do with their starting QB - he coddles Smith's ego by telling everyone Smith was the planned starter for 2012 even though we know that the action of going to see Manning speaks louder than his words ever will.

Remember...Kaepernick still had to earn it...

The concussion was the best way for Harbaugh to make Kaepernick his starter. If Kaepernick had gotten beaten down by the Chicago Bears on Monday Night Football, we wouldn't be talking about this and Alex Smith would be starting against the St. Louis Rams on Sunday. Smith would have started the Saints game and would have remained starter throughout the season regardless of his performance in that game.

As long as he doesn't mess up badly, Kaep will remain 49ers starter for years to come

However, Kaep looked like an All-Pro in his first career start against one of the league's best defenses. That performance earned him another start, a tough road test against the Saints, whose defense, to put it politely, has sucked this year.

If Kaep comes down a little bit this week, will he be replaced? At this point, I believe he has to play his way out of a starting role - like 3 or 4 interceptions-bad, a performance that would have people questioning his judgment for Harbaugh to take him out.

As simple as it was, I believe that the Wednesday press conference was the coronation of the Kaepernick era. If Harbaugh really wanted to go back to Alex this week and beyond, I don't think we get a special conference to announce that he will go back to starting - we'd be reading a simple blurb in an online article about it.

Instead, Harbaugh awkwardly tip-toed around the idea that Alex was a back-up and said that he was playing the "hot hand" with Kaepernick. Uhm, last I checked, Smith's last full-game was an 18-for-19, 232 yard, 3 passing TD performance - not sure it gets any hotter than that. (Even if you believe that Alex is a game manager, those kind of stats don't usually warrant a benching).

We shall see how Kaepernick does in the coming weeks, with tough road tests at New England and Seattle sprinkled in the end of season schedule. I believe he will succeed just as everything and everyone has succeeded since Harbaugh has become coach - this is ultimately the main reason why I support Harbaugh's decision to go with Kaepernick.

In Harbaugh We Trust

Harbaugh has handed over the offense to Kaepernick. We should trust his judgment

Harbaugh may not be the best at covering up his BS, but no one can question his effectiveness as a coach in the past decade.

In his coaching stints with San Diego (college), Stanford & San Francisco, Harbaugh has amassed a record of 79-32-1 (over 70% winning percentage).

He had success at San Diego which has yet to be replicated. He built Stanford from a bumbling Pac-10 school to one that now succeeds in both recruiting and on the field. Now, he's maximizing the talent that the Niners have and that other coaches (like Singletary) were unable to turn into success.

His short reign as 49ers coach has been nothing but a tremendous success (21-5-1 regular season mark and likely a second division title in two years). I'm willing to give Harbaugh the benefit of the doubt on this decision, even if it means benching a guy who's playing the best ball of his career in favor of a younger, more talented quarterback.

If the Niners don't win the Super Bowl (or hell, if they don't advance to the same point of the playoffs that they did last year with Smith), I'm sure we will hear all about how this was a bad decision and that Harbaugh should have stuck with Smith. If we judged all football decisions based on this criteria though, we could say 31 teams made bad decisions in their quest to win the Super Bowl.

I say let's see what Kaepernick can do with the remaining 5 games and see just how right (or wrong) Harbaugh's decision to play him will be.