The Lunatic Fringe

Yeah, I said it.  Maybe pretty much everyone was a little too eager to anoint Colin Kaepernick the next big thing…

Look, I’m not a Kaepernick hater by any means.  He’s impressed me with his abilities, and I believe he can be a top NFL quarterback.  But it needs to be realized that, right now, he’s not one.

Look at the stats.  Right now, he has just 856 passing yards on the season.  That’s 25th in the league.  He’s 24th in the league in completion percentage at just 58.1%  His 214 yards per game is, you got it, 25th in the league.  Sure, that’s not all of his game, but he’s only rushed for 140 yards in 4 games as well.  He had only one rush in Sunday’s game against Texas.

At the end of the game, Kaepernick was 6 for 15, and had a stretch of 8 straight incompletions that spanned more than two quarters.  He had 113 yards total, and if the Texan safeties hadn’t blown their coverage, maybe you don’t have that 64-yard touchdown throw, cutting that total by more than half.

Now, not all of this is on Kaepernick’s back.  Lets face it, the Niners are nearly a receiver-less team.  Anquan Boldin is good, even if he’s not a star receiver anymore.  Vernon Davis has been slowed a bit by injury.  Very telling is that last night, Kaepernick targeted only four different receivers all game, only two of whom were actually wide receivers.

The 49ers are a running team, to be sure.  But Harbaugh’s offense also is about stretching out defenses.  Forget the wide receiver base that was made more shallow after Crabtree’s injury.  At Stanford, Harbaugh’s offense was TE heavy, and only five passes all season have been caught by tight ends not named Davis…and Davis didn’t play in one game already this season.  And the team lost so much versatility when Delanie Walker left in the offseason, as the FB/TE had over 20 yards a game for the 49ers last season and led the team with 16.4 yards a catch.

All this aside, Kaepernick is supposed to be a much more dynamic player than this.  But, this season, he hasn’t been.  He’s disappeared at times, and the team has desperately relied on Frank Gore to make things happen.  However, good teams have figured that out, like Seattle and Indy.  And when that has happened, Kaepernick hasn’t taken over games.

But he’s still being cheered like a superstar, while other quarterbacks get hated on no matter what they do.  Maybe Romo and Alex Smith can start a support group.

Then again, Alex Smith has only 957 yards with the Chiefs this year.

I don’t know.  What I do know is that, between injuries, behavioral issues like Aldon Smith, and some under-performing by so-called superstars…the 49ers do have some things to be worried about, even after big wins.