If anyone still harbored doubts about Colin Kaepernick—I at least will admit to it—he has effectively put them to rest tonight, and barring serious injury he has established himself as the quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers for the next decade. The statistics—45 points, 2 touchdown passes, 2 rushing touchdowns, and 183 yards rushing (not a misprint)—tell only part of the story. On his first series of his first playoff game, Kaepernick tried to float a pass across the field to Vernon Davis, which Scott Shields of the Green Bay Packers intercepted for a pick-six. The script was ready at that point for Kaepernick to fold under the pressure, while Aaron Rodgers, playing his first game in Candlestick Park since becoming the starter of the Packers, would show the 49ers once and for all what a big mistake they had made in not picking him first in the 2005 draft instead of Alex Smith. It didn’t take long, however, to see that Kaepernick had other ideas, marching the 49ers down the field on the following series and tying the score with a 20-yard touchdown run that looked absurdly easy. From that point forward, despite a couple of big passing plays that kept the game close for a while for the Packers, it was Rodgers who looked frustrated most of the time, while Kaepernick seemed entirely at ease on the field. On several drives the Packers defense had Kaepernick on the ropes, but invariably he handled their blitzes on third-and-long situations, taking advantage of the wide-open spaces left by their corresponding man-on-man coverage in the secondary and running up the field for long gains, including a 56-yard touchdown. If nothing else, Kaepernick will require every defensive coordinator in the future to assign a man to shadow him at all times, which should leave Kaepernick with lots of opportunities to connect with Davis and Michael Crabtree down the field with his arm, the strength of which has never been in question.
Other than Kaepernick, the happiest man in San Francisco has to be Jim Harbaugh, who now can rest easy from any future criticism of his decision to promote Kaepernick over Alex Smith in mid-season. Analysts have made much of Smith’s 70-percent completion percentage and high quarterback rating at the time he suffered his concussion, but Harbaugh had seen enough of Smith to know that when faced with a tough defense in a big game, Smith didn’t have the physical tools to force good things to happen. That is the quality that coaches prize most in quarterbacks, and his gamble on Kaepernick has clearly paid off in this respect.
As for Smith, his days in a 49er uniform are coming to an end. If he harbors bitterness over this turn of events, he is intelligent enough not to display it, and in any case he now can hardly question its rationality. If Smith’s agent is worth his commission, he should start peddling him now to every NFL team needing a quarterback. If he’s lucky, he might even find one with money to spend that doesn’t treat its offensive coordinator position like a game of musical chairs. Maybe he could go to a team in the AFC, and next year he could meet the 49ers in the Super Bowl and try to show them what a big mistake they made in letting him go. Much as I’ve previously liked Smith and wished him well, though, I would want that story to end just like tonight’s.
