He was awful much of last year too. It's been clear for a long time that he struggles reading defenses and going through a progression. His accuracy is wildly inconsistent. When he first started out he benefited from an absolutely dominant offensive line. They've lost three of the members of that line (Iupati, Goodwin, and Davis) and it shows.
He is and always was a one trick pony well suited for an offensive fad that's now regressed back to its mean: not irrelevant like some of the gimmicks we've seen but not something you can rely on as the sole source of quarterback production. Until he shows he can go through a progression or improve his accuracy or gets a similarly stacked roster around him, he's going to struggle.
Originally Posted by: mi_keys
I very much agree that, if he were a normal pocket passer, he'd be far below average. These last two weeks, though, he's been absolutely atrocious.
He's never been a very accurate passer and doesn't have the vision or ability to read defense, like you say, but it doesn't help that he went from having one of the best o-lines to one of the worst in the league, has one trick pony Torrey Smith and an aging Boldin, who can't seem to get seperation anymore, at WR and didn't have Vernon Davis the last two games.
If you put a guy like Carson Palmer or Andy Dalton on that team, I don't think it'd look a lot prettier.
I also find it rather easy to dismiss his mobility. Vick has made an entire career around being a mobile quarterback. There's a lot more ways to use it than just running the read-option every second play. You create a huge advantage when you force the defense to keep a spy in... Or take a gamble, don't do it and get run on for 181 yards in a postseason game.
If you scheme it right and get some talent on that offense, he could still be a very dangerous weapon. I don't think the 49ers will do either of those anytime soon, so I don't see Colin returning to form anytime soon, either.