-Q: You’ve made it very clear that David Carr was not brought here to compete for the starting job. And you’ve said that there’s no question Alex remains the starter now. Could you have done a better job in the offseason bringing someone in here to compete for the job?
-SINGLETARY: I guess… looking back on it, I would say this: I knew what I was doing when … the thought-process was. I wanted to bring someone in that in the event something happened to Alex, could come in and play.
But the thing that I wanted to accomplish this year, and it’s still a work in progress. I wanted Alex Smith to focus on executing the offense. For the first time you had a coordinator, you had a system that was in place.
You’ve had five or six coordinators. He’s played a little less than three years, with those changes, there’s no consistency anywhere. So the thing I wanted to do is make sure that he had some consistency without trying to compete with somebody else.
Let’s give him the opportunity to get out there and play football, work through some of the stuff that he’s had to work through, whether it’s this coordinator says you have to read this, this coordinator says you have to read that, this coordinator says you have to throw this way, this coordinator says you have to look there first.
So getting all that crap out and just having a system that he can run.
I think the only person that Alex Smith needed to really compete with this year is himself and get rid of some of the ghosts that he already has. That’s the competition I felt was the most important thing for him to get rid of.
And I think he’s working through that. I think he’s doing a good job of working through that.
-Q: How is he doing at competing with himself?
-SINGLETARY: I think he’s doing a decent job.