Could O’Sullivan winning the job be a smart move
San Francisco 49er’s head coach Mike Nolan announced recently that quarterback JT O’Sullivan is going to be the starter for the opening of the season. O’Sullivan winning the job could be the first smart thing that Nolan has done.
From the start of Smith’s career Nolan screwed it up. No quarterback should ever reach the field of play in his rookie season, unless injuries force him to be on there. However, Smith started nine games as a rookie, beacause the team was pathetic.
On top of that Smith has had constant change at the offensive coordinator position. In his four years of playing football Smith has had four different offensive coordinators.
No matter how good the talent is constantly changing the systems will only lead to failure.
The reason being that players need time, and practice, at getting good at an offensive system. There are things like timing, terminology, and other little things that quarterbacks have to learn to be succesfull within a system.
On top of that Smith was set up to fail from the start.
O’Sullivan has one clear advantage over Smith, and that is he was in current offensive coordinator Mike Martz system last year with the Detroit Lions.
The only way that brining in O’Sullivan, and then relegating Smith to the bench, is if they intend to give Smith a year of learning in Martz’s new system.
That is the smartest thing that Nolan could have done. The reason being is that Martz was the offensive coordinator for the Saint Louis Rams in the greatest show on turf era at the turn of the century.
Martz’s offense is really complex, and simply making Smith the starter would have been detrimental to him again.
Just maybe Smith will now be able to take a step back, breathe, and just start over.
For if he does not turn things around he could surpass former San Diego Charger’s quarterback Ryan Leaf as the biggest bust of all time.