Is Sam Darnold the Next Alex Smith?

Compare Darnold's career numbers to Smith's career numbers before Harbaugh coached him.

Grant Cohn | Apr 5, 2023

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San Francisco 49ers

Sam Darnold stinks.

At least that's what everyone says about him. The former top-three pick hasn't even turned 26-years old yet, and everyone has written him off already, just like they wrote off Alex Smith when he was young. And as we know, everyone was wrong about Smith.

Darnold and Smith have lots in common. Both were big-time recruit's coming out of high school in Southern California. Both were top-three picks coming out of college -- Smith was the No. 1 pick, Darnold was the No. 3 pick. Both were drafted to terrible teams with terrible coaches. Both were scapegoated and benched because they tried to do too much, committed lots of turnovers and failed to live up to unreasonable expectations.

Then the 49ers hired Jim Harbaugh, who rebuilt Smith's confidence, convinced him to play like a game manager and protect the football, and suddenly Smith became a winning quarterback. Now Kyle Shanahan is attempting to do the same thing with Darnold, and Shanahan just might succeed.

Compare Darnold's career numbers to Smith's career numbers before Harbaugh coached him.

DARNOLD

21 wins

34 losses

59.7 completion percentage

210.1 passing yards per game

61 touchdown passes

55 interceptions

35 fumbles

SMITH (PRE-HARBAUGH)

19 wins

31 losses

57.1 completion percentage

174.1 passing yards per game

51 touchdown passes

53 interceptions

34 fumbles

Eerily similar statistics, and you could argue Smith's were worse. Which means it certainly is possible Darnold that could turn his career around on the 49ers if he ever gets the chance to play.

But Shanahan will have to prove he can build up a quarterback's confidence the way Harbaugh did. Perhaps that's why Shanahan recently said that Darnold is as talented as any quarterback in the league.

That's exactly what Harbaugh would say.

Published Apr 5, 2023

GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.