Alex Smith launches war of words

Maybe it’s a good thing that the Carolina Panthers won’t be coming to the City By The Bay this football season to play the 49ers.

Because after some recent quarterback-on-quarterback smack talk that took place this past week, a matchup between these two teams could result in a blood bath.

All this started when Niners QB Alex Smith took a dig at the Panthers and their sophomore quarterback, Cam Newton.

In response to interview questions last Wednesday regarding his less-than-stellar pass completion stats during the 2011 season, Smith responded with:

“I could absolutely care less on yards per game. … I think that is a totally overblown stat because if you’re losing games in the second half, guess what, you’re like the Carolina Panthers and you’re going no-huddle the entire second half. Yeah, Cam Newton threw for a lot of 300-yard games. That’s great. You’re not winning, though.”

Oh, Alex Smith. You brooding, disgruntled character you.

And despite Pro Football Talk’s claim that this type of talk is “out of character” for Smith, this isn’t the first time this off-season that the QB has let the chip on his shoulder get the better of him. Anyone remember his attempt to leave SF after being unhappy with his beloved head coach taking a gander at Peyton Manning?

Smith’s jab resulted in rebuttal comments from Panthers middle linebacker Jon Beason via — where else — Twitter:

  “Alex smith, don’t hate on Cam Bc your stats would’ve gotten u cut if Peyton decided to come 2 San Fran. Truth b told … That’s after a 13-3 yr.”

Aaaaaand now we have ourselves two football teams in a war of words.

Niners’ All-Pro linebacker Patrick Willis stepped into the Twitter fray to defend Smith. Beason went on SiriusXM Radio Tuesday to elaborate on his own Twitter comments. And sports media outlets and both teams’ blogs are weighing in on how these comments could come back and haunt Smith if he doesn’t have a better season stat-wise.

All we’re missing are some cosmic words of wisdom from Señor Harbaugh and we’ve got ourselves one of the juiciest spats of the NFL off-season.

Conspicuously not weighing in on the matter is baby-faced Cam, who chose a self-deprecating route when talking to Yahoo! Sports’ Jason Cole. Newton told Cole that he needed to work on being a better teammate in 2012.

Don’t expect this San Fran-Carolina tiff to go away any time soon, sports fans. Even without these two NFC franchises meeting on the 50-yard-line this season, there is sure to be more quarterback-on-quarterback talk between these two teams.