[washingtonismoney]

Not exactly sure why our offense would be "unquestionably much better" with a QB who ranks below JN in all categories save one [% completion]... ???

Stats are deceptive in this case--poor offensive line, so-so skill players. I think last year's excellent performance (8.46 YPA, 66% passing) is more reflective of his potential. (Though I don't think it'd be quite that good with us. Still, better.)

There seem to be a lot of parallels with Alex Smith and the 49ers and Josh Nunes and Stanford.  Namely, in each case the WRs were blamed, but the reality is the evidence, at least in Alex Smith's case, demonstrates the lack of a top shelf play making, accurate QB is the real issue.  My guess is if Stanford had QB production somewhere between Nunes and Luck, the WRs would be considered to be just fine by most obvservers.

I disagree with your analogy, for a couple of reasons.
1) I've never suggested that Nunes isn't an important issue, as I've repeated ad nauseam now. I think given the poor play of both QB and receivers, you could get substantial improvement by targeting either the QB or the skill position players. People are mostly critical of the QB, far out of proportion of the actual flaws of the offense.

2) The comparison of the Niners 2011 to Stanford 2012 is highly flawed because the Niners in 2011 had better skill players. Frank Gore and Kendall Hunter are better than Stepfan Taylor and Anthony Wilkerson (relative to their leagues); Vernon Davis and Delanie Walker are equal to, if not better than Ertz and Toilolo; Crabtree et. al. are miles better than the Stanford WR, inasmuch as they were not actually near the worst wideout corps in the entire league. So there was much less room for improvement; trying to go from below-average to above-average might be less rewarding than upgrading from, say, terrible to below-average.

3) At any rate, that's just preliminaries: the problem here is that your analogy is weak and your evidence is weaker. Your analogy, as I understand it, shows that: the Niners tried to improve their skill players to enhance their offense despite their so-so QB; it didn't work against the Giants; therefore the Niners' offense didn't improve and Stanford won't either.

It's weak for a number of reasons: 1) the Niners are better this year than last year. The W-L column doesn't reflect it, because they're playing a highly difficult schedule. But their offensive stats do: Niners passers are averaging 7.6 yards per attempt; Niners rushers are averaging 5.9 yards per rush this year. That compares to 7.1 yards per attempt last year in the passing game, and 4.1 yards per rush. If your argument is that improving skill players somehow hasn't improved the Niners' offense, it's a highly dubious one, especially given the difficulty of the Niners' schedule.

2) Of course it hardly needs to be said that a single game's evidence isn't exactly decisive evidence one way or another.

3) And of course it seems pretty obvious to me that a single game's evidence is hardly decisive evidence about an entirely different team.

4) But yes, the Niners would be much better if they had Drew Brees. Happy?

[washingtonismoney]

Not exactly sure why our offense would be "unquestionably much better" with a QB who ranks below JN in all categories save one [% completion]... ???

Stats are deceptive in this case--poor offensive line, so-so skill players. I think last year's excellent performance (8.46 YPA, 66% passing) is more reflective of his potential. (Though I don't think it'd be quite that good with us. Still, better.)

There seem to be a lot of parallels with Alex Smith and the 49ers and Josh Nunes and Stanford.  Namely, in each case the WRs were blamed, but the reality is the evidence, at least in Alex Smith's case, demonstrates the lack of a top shelf play making, accurate QB is the real issue.  My guess is if Stanford had QB production somewhere between Nunes and Luck, the WRs would be considered to be just fine by most obvservers.

I disagree with your analogy, for a couple of reasons.
1) I've never suggested that Nunes isn't an important issue, as I've repeated ad nauseam now. I think given the poor play of both QB and receivers, you could get substantial improvement by targeting either the QB or the skill position players. People are mostly critical of the QB, far out of proportion of the actual flaws of the offense.

2) The comparison of the Niners 2011 to Stanford 2012 is highly flawed because the Niners in 2011 had better skill players. Frank Gore and Kendall Hunter are better than Stepfan Taylor and Anthony Wilkerson (relative to their leagues); Vernon Davis and Delanie Walker are equal to, if not better than Ertz and Toilolo; Crabtree et. al. are miles better than the Stanford WR, inasmuch as they were not actually near the worst wideout corps in the entire league. So there was much less room for improvement; trying to go from below-average to above-average might be less rewarding than upgrading from, say, terrible to below-average.

3) At any rate, that's just preliminaries: the problem here is that your analogy is weak and your evidence is weaker. Your analogy, as I understand it, shows that: the Niners tried to improve their skill players to enhance their offense despite their so-so QB; it didn't work against the Giants; therefore the Niners' offense didn't improve and Stanford won't either.

It's weak for a number of reasons: 1) the Niners are better this year than last year. The W-L column doesn't reflect it, because they're playing a highly difficult schedule. But their offensive stats do: Niners passers are averaging 7.6 yards per attempt; Niners rushers are averaging 5.9 yards per rush this year. That compares to 7.1 yards per attempt last year in the passing game, and 4.1 yards per rush. If your argument is that improving skill players somehow hasn't improved the Niners' offense, it's a highly dubious one, especially given the difficulty of the Niners' schedule.

2) Of course it hardly needs to be said that a single game's evidence isn't exactly decisive evidence one way or another.

3) And of course it seems pretty obvious to me that a single game's evidence is hardly decisive evidence about an entirely different team.

4) But yes, the Niners would be much better if they had Drew Brees. Happy?