Does Jim Harbaugh really trust Alex Smith?

When a team plays as well as the San Francisco 49ers did last season, usually the quarterback gets a lot of credit for that and quarterback Alex Smith was rightfully deserving of the credit. Smith guided the 49ers to a 13-3 regular season record and nearly led them to the Super Bowl.

When you dig deeper into the 49ers' passing statistics though, you start to get a very different picture of Smith as a quarterback. Sure he put together a great season, throwing 17 touchdowns while tossing only five interceptions, but many of his other numbers were extremely pedestrian.

Take his completion numbers for instance. Despite playing in all 16 games, Smith only had four games where he completed 20 or more passes.

And in those four games he completed 20, 21, 20 and 20 passes respectively. It’s almost as if 49ers’ coach Jim Harbaugh was determined not to put the outcome of games in Smith’s hands.

It also seems eerie that only three of the 49ers' receivers caught 20 or more passes last season. All but three teams in the league had at least five receivers catch 20 or more passes. The other two teams who’s receiving corps were as unproductive as the 49ers? The Denver Broncos and the Indianapolis Colts.

The Broncos are understandable since they had Tim Tebow as a starter but as bad as the Colt’s passing situation was last year they still had four receivers with at least 20 catches.

Michael Crabtree and Vernon Davis both caught 72 and 67 passes respectively for San Francisco last year but the 49ers’ third best receiver was Kyle Williams with exactly 20 receptions.

It almost makes you wonder: was San Francisco’s receiving corps that poor or did Harbaugh scale the offense down to the bare bones so that Smith could successfully operate it?

Although the 49ers have upgraded at wide receiver by adding Randy Moss, Mario Manningham and A.J. Jenkins during the offseason, I am inclined to believe the latter.

Call me crazy but I have a hard time believing that Harbaugh who coached Andrew Luck in a pro-style offense at Stanford couldn’t have come up with a more creative passing attack than the one the 49ers utilized last season.

Especially when you consider the time constraints that college coaches have to work with their players. I know that teams didn’t get much of an offseason to prepare due to the lockout last year but San Francisco’s passing attack was extremely conservative even by league standards.

I also don’t trust Harbaugh’s John Elway-like support of Smith throughout the season. Harbaugh said from day one that Smith was his quarterback and that he believed Smith could get it done. He then turned around and drafted a quarterback while only giving Smith a one-year contract.

Harbaugh then jumped into the Peyton Manning sweepstakes this year, putting Smith on the backburner until Manning spurned San Francisco’s attempts to woo him. They then signed Smith to a not-so-lucrative three-year deal.

So this year we will get to see how Harbaugh truly feels about Smith leading his team. With all of the wide receivers added over the offseason maybe Harbaugh will open up the offense and let Smith show what he can do.

There is also the possibility that we could see Colin Kaepernick starting at some point this season but as long as the 49ers are winning, I doubt Harbaugh would be willing to rock the boat.

Which means that Alex Smith pretty much controls his own destiny. Can he make the transition from a game-manager to a game-changer or will he continue his conservative, low-risk style of play? We’ll find out soon enough.  

Roosevelt Hall is an NFL Blogger for The Sport Mentalist and an NBA Blogger for The Sport Mentalist 2. He is also a Sports Reporter for Pro Sports Lives. He can be contacted at RHall_TPFB@Yahoo.com and be sure to follow him on Twitter @sportmentalist.

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