Why Have our Last Two Promising QB Prospects Flamed Out?

We thought Kap was the one. He signed his #KAP2020 deal and we thought we had our QB of the future. I remember watching games and him looking unstoppable with accurate passes, timely QB scrambles and explosive plays. I literally thought in 2014 that we could beat anyone. And then it fell apart. It's not just the team fell apart, Kap looked like a shell of himself, like he didn't know how to play QB. The "yips game" against the Cards where he threw like three pick sixes was dumbfounding. Then the following game against the Packers where it looked like Kap was afraid to throw. What happened there? Were there personal issues in his life affecting the field? Was he just not committed to being a better player? Was the team as a whole a cluster-F?

Or maybe we as fans had on rose colored-glasses and saw what we wanted to see.

Then there was Jimmy. In 2017 he looked magical. That sexy quick release, the way we moved effortlessly up and down the field and Jimmy was doing all of this with just a "Cliff Notes" version of Kyles offense. Imagine what he would do with a full grasp of the offense. Then Jimmy just kept getting hurt. The 2018 season should have been the season where Jimmy had to put it all together, make a ton of "rookie mistakes" and we win 10 games and get a wild card berth. But instead he got injured. Prior to that injury, Jimmy was fearless. He'd actually look to scramble and pick up yards with his legs and extend plays. He looked explosive too and illusive in the pocket? What happened? Is the team just snake-bitten?

Or maybe, again, we had on rose-colored glasses. Maybe Jimmy was the same Jimmy he is now, it's just that we were comparing it against Beathard and Mullens. Jimmy was still throwing the same bonehead ints in 2017 and 2018, we just ignored it, maybe.

Why so many false starts, with our last two QBs? Why will Trey be different?

One was a Taysom Hill type QB and the other can't stay healthy and rarely throws past 10 yards.

They both struggled against defenses that loaded the box and try to stop Frank Gore / Deebo. End of the day, you need a dynamic passing game, otherwise you got no chance. Kaepernick had all the physical talent, but never improved his mechanics and footwork. And I remember him distinctly saying that they were "not that important" and hes not big on mechanics as long as the ball gets there. Well to me… even the great ones like Brady work on their mechanics everyday even though people think they're great already, so I think that's a load of bs.

Thankfully, it sounds like Trey Lance has the right mindset and the work ethic, so we will see if it translates to the field

Originally posted by BleedsRedNGold:
We thought Kap was the one. He signed his #KAP2020 deal and we thought we had our QB of the future. I remember watching games and him looking unstoppable with accurate passes, timely QB scrambles and explosive plays. I literally thought in 2014 that we could beat anyone. And then it fell apart. It's not just the team fell apart, Kap looked like a shell of himself, like he didn't know how to play QB. The "yips game" against the Cards where he threw like three pick sixes was dumbfounding. Then the following game against the Packers where it looked like Kap was afraid to throw. What happened there? Were there personal issues in his life affecting the field? Was he just not committed to being a better player? Was the team as a whole a cluster-F?

Or maybe we as fans had on rose colored-glasses and saw what we wanted to see.

Then there was Jimmy. In 2017 he looked magical. That sexy quick release, the way we moved effortlessly up and down the field and Jimmy was doing all of this with just a "Cliff Notes" version of Kyles offense. Imagine what he would do with a full grasp of the offense. Then Jimmy just kept getting hurt. The 2018 season should have been the season where Jimmy had to put it all together, make a ton of "rookie mistakes" and we win 10 games and get a wild card berth. But instead he got injured. Prior to that injury, Jimmy was fearless. He'd actually look to scramble and pick up yards with his legs and extend plays. He looked explosive too and illusive in the pocket? What happened? Is the team just snake-bitten?

Or maybe, again, we had on rose-colored glasses. Maybe Jimmy was the same Jimmy he is now, it's just that we were comparing it against Beathard and Mullens. Jimmy was still throwing the same bonehead ints in 2017 and 2018, we just ignored it, maybe.

Why so many false starts, with our last two QBs? Why will Trey be different?

Because it's hard to find a good QB. Especially once other teams start taking you seriously and work to figure you out.

Originally posted by Ensatsu:
They both struggled against defenses that loaded the box and try to stop Frank Gore / Deebo. End of the day, you need a dynamic passing game, otherwise you got no chance. Kaepernick had all the physical talent, but never improved his mechanics and footwork. And I remember him distinctly saying that they were "not that important" and hes not big on mechanics as long as the ball gets there. Well to me… even the great ones like Brady work on their mechanics everyday even though people think they're great already, so I think that's a load of bs.

Thankfully, it sounds like Trey Lance has the right mindset and the work ethic, so we will see if it translates to the field

I think a lot of that was on Harbaugh. He never was concerned about Kap's mechanics and wasn't worried about changing it. If your HC isn't on your ass then the player more than likely will stick with what got them there. coach needs to give the player direction and what to work on. Then the player needs to work on it. I guarantee KS isn't going for that s**t. It will be on Trey to work and progress. I don't think Kap was ever told to work on it and just hit the weight room instead of refining his mecahnics.

Its up to the QBs to step up

Kaeps head got too big

Jimmy felt he didn't need to get better (since he said he's winner at the end of the day)

I've read more outside of practice work from Trey than i've read about Kaep and Jimmy combined

Originally posted by Stanley:
Because it's hard to find a good QB. Especially once other teams start taking you seriously and work to figure you out.

A lot of good QBs have come out of the draft the past years. Soon we can say the same about Trey. Dang excited about our future.

Originally posted by lamontb:

Originally posted by Ensatsu:
They both struggled against defenses that loaded the box and try to stop Frank Gore / Deebo. End of the day, you need a dynamic passing game, otherwise you got no chance. Kaepernick had all the physical talent, but never improved his mechanics and footwork. And I remember him distinctly saying that they were "not that important" and hes not big on mechanics as long as the ball gets there. Well to me… even the great ones like Brady work on their mechanics everyday even though people think they're great already, so I think that's a load of bs.

Thankfully, it sounds like Trey Lance has the right mindset and the work ethic, so we will see if it translates to the field

I think a lot of that was on Harbaugh. He never was concerned about Kap's mechanics and wasn't worried about changing it. If your HC isn't on your ass then the player more than likely will stick with what got them there. coach needs to give the player direction and what to work on. Then the player needs to work on it. I guarantee KS isn't going for that s**t. It will be on Trey to work and progress. I don't think Kap was ever told to work on it and just hit the weight room instead of refining his mecahnics.

This
and by changing his morphology especially arm and upper body it changed his natural mechanics and disaster followed
it was his biggest mistake

Originally posted by lamontb:

Originally posted by Ensatsu:
They both struggled against defenses that loaded the box and try to stop Frank Gore / Deebo. End of the day, you need a dynamic passing game, otherwise you got no chance. Kaepernick had all the physical talent, but never improved his mechanics and footwork. And I remember him distinctly saying that they were "not that important" and hes not big on mechanics as long as the ball gets there. Well to me… even the great ones like Brady work on their mechanics everyday even though people think they're great already, so I think that's a load of bs.

Thankfully, it sounds like Trey Lance has the right mindset and the work ethic, so we will see if it translates to the field

I think a lot of that was on Harbaugh. He never was concerned about Kap's mechanics and wasn't worried about changing it. If your HC isn't on your ass then the player more than likely will stick with what got them there. coach needs to give the player direction and what to work on. Then the player needs to work on it. I guarantee KS isn't going for that s**t. It will be on Trey to work and progress. I don't think Kap was ever told to work on it and just hit the weight room instead of refining his mecahnics.

I agree. I think Harbaugh's "f the media and f the world" approach definitely rubbed off on Kap and not to positive results.

I also think there were too many blurbs/reports about Kap not putting in enough time with film study that it likely was at least partially true. So you have a guy who is very talented but not staying ahead of the competition as they plan on how to stop you and you get what we got. Add to that the fact that our team was losing talent, he was getting injured more and you have the decline in his play.

Jimmy I think lost some of his swagger with the knee injury and never got over it and his physical limitations caught up to him because he still wants to play like he's got a big arm and take his shots.

Kap had all the talent in the world but couldn't read a defense. Teams caught on pretty quick and realized that if you could keep him in the pocket he couldn't succeed. At the beginning he benefited from teams not knowing how to defend fast QBs but then the league figured it out. He would have a lot less success in 2022 because teams already know how to beat guys like him. That is why guys like Allen and Jackson are so valuable because they are dynamic runners but can beat you with his arm. The play that stands out to me the most about Kap's inability to read a defense is the infamous Torrey Smith play against the Rams I believe where literally no one was over top of him and Kap ignored him leaving Smith to jump up and down.

Jimmy's downfall was injuries. He has a quick release and is good at making quick reads. He wasn't dynamic enough to keep up with the league unfortunately. His talent level(not his injury proneness) is more of a 70s or 80s talent where dinking and dunking down the field was enough. It is not enough today because it has become a passing league due to the rules and the QBs in the league right now are so talented, he just can't keep up.

Our last three

Originally posted by Brucey72:

The play that stands out to me the most about Kap's inability to read a defense is the infamous Torrey Smith play against the Rams I believe where literally no one was over top of him and Kap ignored him leaving Smith to jump up and down.

That stands out to me, too. From the outside looking in, though, it's not clear if that was an unfixable limitation of his or if the coaches just failed to coach him. Given the issues with injuries, one can suspect that our conditioning program has had issues for a long time (he put on too much muscle) and Harbaugh seems to be the kind of guy who throws his toddler into the deep end of the pool and says, "Time to learn how to swim."

Originally posted by TheXFactor:
One was a Taysom Hill type QB and the other can't stay healthy and rarely throws past 10 yards.

Jimmy was 2nd in the league last year in Yards per attempt. 4th in adjusted yards per attempt. 1st in net yards per pass attempt.

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2021/passing.htm

This narrative needs to die because it's simply wrong. Now if you said 20+ yards you might have a compelling argument but Jimmy's bread and butter was that 0-15 yard range which is where most of the game is played. I wonder how he will do in a different passing system that isn't quite so regimented because we saw what he was capable of in 2017 when Kyle had to let him ad lib more so than handle his designed play calls.

Neither were as good as they seemed.

Keap caught lighting in a bottle in the second half of 2012. He looked like a future top tier QB. In 2013 I noticed a regression. It was easy to discount it because we were still winning. In 2014 it was total exposure when we tried to put him in a 4 WR drop back passing game. By 2015 he was done. He never was a top tier QB, he just played like it for 1/2 a season.

In 2017 we struggled to even win a game. When Jimmy started and we started winning it masked his mistakes. I think he had 7 TD and 5 INT in those 5 games. We thought he would easily progress to a TD to INT ratio equal to the top QB's. That never happened. It turns out that was a good representation of who he is. Looks good most of time, makes mistakes and then wins a lot.