What's In A Name? The Smiths at Quarterback Won't Decide 49ers Fate

Sunday afternoon's game between the visiting St. Louis Rams and your UEFA Champion San Francisco 49ers will be a confusing affair for the folks at Candlestick Park.

On one hand you will see the hometown quarterback with a surname of "Smith" struggling, and your instincts, muscle memory and embrace of routine will compel you to start jeering.

But just as your beer-moistened lips press together to form the "B" in "Boo," a flash of realization will hit you, much like the bright red brake lights on a semi signal to your brain, "Hey bud, the guy in front isn't moving anymore. Perhaps you should stop moving as well, by slamming that brake pedal tootsweet."

Your eyes will tell you that something here is amiss, send that telegram of trepidation to your noggin and like lightning an idea will form through the fog that even though the fellow in the red jersey playing quarterback is scattershotting passes all over the pitch with his awry right arm, he most definitely is not Alex Smith: The Bane of Your Existence. 

Instead, it will be Troy Smith, savior du jour, warming his hands under David Baas' considerable hindquarters and throwing the ball roughly one of every three plays. Will he play better than Alex? Perhaps he might, as it's certainly not a bar you have to be Sergey Bubka to clear.

There's also a considerable chance that he will play worse. But because I'm not Biff Tannen and haven't pilfered a 2015 sports almanac through time and space, I truly have no idea if he will.

What I do have an idea about, though, is that the difference between the two Smiths isn't pronounced enough to make a negligible difference one way or the other. There's a few things one may do than the other, and vice versa, but we're not exactly talking about the difference between Peyton Manning and Curtis Painter here.

So by default, in a roundabout way I am forced for once to agree with head coach Mike Singletary when he says that quarterback is not the most important position in his offense.

Don't get me wrong. Quarterback is still the most important position, in any offense. But when there isn't an appreciable difference between your starter and backup, then you really do have to look elsewhere when contemplating how the 49ers will fare on Sunday.

For example, how will their offensive line do against a suddenly fearsome St. Louis pass rush? Rams head coach Steve Spagnuolo was the defensive coordinator for that 2007 New York Giants squad that shut down Tom Brady and the 18-0 New England Patriots in the Super Bowl and his creative blitz schemes have started baring fruit with the Rams, who are ninth in the league with 23 sacks.

Starting ends James Hall and Chris Long have combined for 11 between them, which isn't an earthshaking total, but eight other Rams defenders have chipped in as well.

The Niners o-line had a clean game at Denver, assisted by Troy Smith's elusiveness. Center David Baas isn't feeling too vulnerable playing alongside two freshmen in left guard Mike Iupati and right tackle Anthony Davis. Rather, he's emboldened because of them. He challenged Spagnuolo to give them a blitz they haven't already seen.

"We’ve already had a bunch of different looks," he said. "Teams know we’ve got the two rookies in there, so they’ve brought everything against us."

Then there's the difference in the respective secondaries. The Rams are tied for second in the league, having allowed just four pass plays of over 30 yards all season. The 49ers, meanwhile, are tied for second to last, having given up 11 already.

Corner Nate Clements is playing with an ankle he nicked up at Oakland and he's struggled mightily against receivers running double moves on him at Carolina and versus Denver. Free safety Dashon Goldson has also been dealing with nagging injuries and he has yet to make a play all season.

Singletary explained that Goldson hasn't had much of a chance and suggested that it's been because teams have been targeting rookie Taylor Mays.

"It's just like with corners," he said. "When you have a good corner on one side, then you go at the other guy."

So that's why Reggie Smith will be eating into some of Mays' playing time. And here I totally bought the official explanation, that Mays was too tired after playing on special teams to perform well on every defensive snap, too. 

On the other side of the ball, the Rams have the twin advantages of being both less predictable and more experienced at quarterback, which is a neat trick given that Sam Bradford is a rookie. Still, he has eight starts under his belt to Troy Smith's three.

Bradford's numbers don't overwhelm you, but he hasn't thrown an interception in his last 96 throws and he's the first rookie passer with more than 10 touchdown passes before the calender flipped to November since Dan Marino.

"Before they were predictable, they couldn’t throw the ball," said end Justin Smith, and before you ask, he wasn't talking about the Rams offense, not his own. "Now they can and it opens everything up and we can’t just key on the run."

Which would be good news for Steven Jackson, if he was being truthful. The 49ers defense always keys on the run and damn the consequences. They will make Bradford beat them, and he very well might, even with Brandon Gibson and Danny Amendola as his main targets.

It was interesting to hear a respected 49ers offensive player opine that he didn't think Bradford would be any good as a pro because he played in a shotgun-based offense at Oklahoma.

Is there any doubt that this bias developed subconsciously after watching Alex Smith struggle for years?

The biggest match-up to watch will be the coaches on the sidelines. Spagnuolo is slowly but surely changing the Rams culture. His Super Bowl ring—earned recently, not when Back to the Future came out—gave him immediate respect in the locker room and there haven't been any whispers about him suggesting that he doesn't know what he's doing.

Not so with Singletary, of course. His regime is steady as she goes, long on declarations and promises, short on ideas and results. 

The most important member of the 49ers secondary on Sunday may very well turn out to be not Mays or Clements or Goldson, but instead Michael Lewis, who began the season in San Francisco but then requested and was granted his release six weeks ago after losing his starting job.

All week long Singletary and his similarly arrogant lieutenant, offensive coordinator Mike Johnson, have insisted that Lewis, who plays for the Rams now, will have no impact on the game and that whatever intelligence he can provide will not matter.

Lewis wouldn't share how much inside info he gave, but he hinted that it was substantial.

"The coaching staff, they've done a great job of doing their homework on the 49ers, and that's pretty much all I'll say," he told the St. Louis media.

He admitted that in addition to the coaching staff he's chatted up Bradford and Jackson.

We'll see on Sunday how much of a difference Lewis' scouting report and a new quarterback will make for St. Louis. Last season they lost 35-0 in San Francisco in a game that was somewhat closer than the score suggests. The 49ers managed just two offensive touchdowns that day and out-gained the Rams 228 yards to 177.

Boo whichever Smith you want. Quarterback isn't the team's only problem. Nor is it the biggest. Not by a longshot.

I'm picking the Rams, 17-13.

And cheer up, you ingrates. The Giants just won the World Series.