49ers-Jets: Hill Leads 49ers To 24-14 Win, Proves He's Here to Stay

He may not throw the perfect spiral, nor scramble as well as former 49er quarterback and Hall-of-Famer Steve Young, but 49ers quarterback Shaun Hill's funny looking celebrations are right on point with those of the Hall-of-Famer.

And isn't that the point of competition? Being able to celebrate and partake in the enjoyment of beating your opponent?  The 49ers have done more celebrating with Shaun Hill (5-2 as 49ers starter) over the last two seasons than they have with any of their other previous six quarterbacks since 2004. 

Sunday, against the popularly named New York Bretts (Jets + Brett Favre = Bretts) the 49ers, led by Shaun Hill, dominated the New York Jets en route to a convincing 24-14 victory at The Stick. 

Hill finished the game 28-for-39 for 285 yards with 2 touchdowns and 1 interception, while Brett Favre went 20-for-31 for 137 yards, 0 passing TD's and 1 INT. 

Now nobody is going to say that Shaun Hill is better than Brett Favre, but what this game does show is that a journeyman quarterback can effectively play at the caliber of the big-name QB's.  Even though Hill has a wobbly deep ball and doesn't throw the rocket spiral that Favre has, he gets the job done.

There is a popular sports saying that goes, "They don't ask how, they just ask how many."  Typically this refers to scoring goals in a sport such as hockey, but it can just as easily be used in reference to completions for a quarterback and/or winning football games. 

Hill doesn't make pretty passes but he makes a lot of quality throws that are right on the money and he has the W's to show for it.

In Sunday's game against the Jets, Hill showed the confidence in his receivers to make plays, and he hit them when they were open as well as limiting the mistakes. 

He did throw an interception but it seemed to be the fault of miscommunication, rather than a bad throw like 49er fans were used to seeing from J. T. O'Sullivan and in previous seasons, Alex Smith.

Hill has the innate ability to stay within himself and not try to do to much, compared to O' Sullivan and Smith, he has by far and away the best pocket awareness and general smarts of all three of them. 

Instead of trying to make last-second throws while getting hit and fumbling, (a la O' Sullivan) Hill secures the ball and fights for as many yards as possible.  And unlike Alex Smith, Hill can sense when the pocket collapses and makes plays with his feet.  Smith is the best athlete of all three, but in his time as the 49ers' starter, he never knew when it was the right time to leave the pocket.

A quarterback can have all the talent in the world, but without the intangibles, he is not going to get it done. 

Shaun Hill has all of those intangibles.

We first saw them with the Monday night game in Arizona where he busted his butt for eight yards on 3rd-and-9, lost his helmet after getting hit, and then dove forward helmet-less for the first down.  And this past Sunday against New York, Hill scrambled away from pressure a couple of times to gain first downs and keep drives alive. 

The 49ers almost had the ball for twice as long as the Jets on Sunday and were without Frank Gore for the majority of the second half.  But Hill didn't miss a beat, he continued playing football because that is who he is, a football player.  I'm not really sure what JTO or Alex Smith are, but it is perfectly clear that Shaun Hill is here to play football.

I'm tired of football fans knocking on Hill, saying that he is only a good interim quarterback; the 49ers still need to find their guy of the future.  Why can't Hill be the future? He's only in his early thirties and has shown that he can beat quality football teams.

Just think about it, what happened the last time the 49ers brought in a quarterback midseason who was a career backup (like Hill) and had gone to play in a foreign country (like Hill)?

His name is Jeff Garcia and he went to three Pro Bowls as a 49er and is currently still panning out a solid NFL career as the starting quarterback for the Tampa Bay Bucs.

So my plea to the 49ers: let Shaun Hill start until either

A) he gets hurt or

B) he starts playing like a career backup,

Right now, he is nowhere close to a back-up position; he is the leader of the 49ers.

Yes, the 49ers need to upgrade their roster at the quarterback position, but draft a quarterback in the later rounds and let him sit behind Shaun Hill for at least a full season, preferably multiple seasons. 

Steve Young waited four years before he became a starter and he didn't turn out that bad did he? Not at all, as mentioned before, he is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.