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Chryst was brought into to be a quarterback whisperer, as it were. From 1996 to 1998, he served as quarterbacks coach for the Arizona Cardinals, working first with end-of-career Boomer Esiason and career journeyman Kent Graham before getting the opportunity to work with second-round pick Jake Plummer in 1997.

Esiason, even in his second-to-last season, still had the tools to be a great quarterback, and his one year under Chryst was a significant step up from his last two seasons with the New York Jets.

Graham’s 1996 season with Chryst was arguably the best in his career, as he completed 146 passes for 1,624 yards and 12 touchdowns to just seven interceptions. You can make an argument it’s that season that kept getting him chances to step in after injuries occurred later in his career.

Plummer, on the other hand, had rookie struggles and didn’t exactly become a top quarterback in Chryst’s first two seasons working with him. There was, however, notable improvement from 1997 to 1998.

Plummer’s completion percentage rose while his interception percentage dropped, and he led the franchise to its first postseason win since 1947. There was clearly enough there for the Chargers to be intrigued at the possibility of having Chryst work with their struggling rookie quarterback, Ryan Leaf.

Insert dramatic sting here.

To be fair, Chryst didn’t have to work with Leaf in his first year in San Diego. Leaf hurt his shoulder in training camp and missed the entire 1999 season. Instead, Chryst worked with two quarterbacks approaching the ends of their careers: Jim Harbaugh and Erik Kramer.

Neither had seasons to write home about, though Harbaugh had some success coming off the bench in 2000. Kramer, on the other hand, looked awful after a couple of solid seasons in Chicago leading up to his San Diego stint.

Harbaugh finished his tenure under Chryst with 372 completions for 4,177 yards, 18 touchdowns and 24 interceptions, arguably the worst numbers of any of his NFL stops. Considering these were the last two years of his career, that might explain his struggles.

Kramer’s one season under Chryst saw him complete 78 passes for 788 yards and two touchdowns, along with 10 interceptions, which is easily the worst stretch of his NFL career. It’s fair to say Chryst didn’t coach up either player significantly, but he rode them to an 8-8 season.

Then, in 2000, Leaf came back, and that’s when the bottom fell out.

Leaf was the primary starter in 2000, with Harbaugh coming in and out of the lineup as Leaf got hurt and healthy and hurt again. Harbaugh played decently in his stretches in the lineup; Leaf did not.

I suppose it’s worth noting that Leaf played better in 2000 than he did in his rookie year of 1998. He completed a full 50 percent of his passes and increased from two touchdown passes to 11 on less than 80 additional pass attempts. His interception rate dropped, and his quarterback rating jumped from 39.0 to 56.2. Two years working with Chryst made Leaf just a really bad quarterback, rather than an utter disaster.

That 2000 season is why Chryst’s overall record looks so bad, because they stumbled to a 1-15 record. I don’t think you can blame Chryst for not being able to win with Leaf; he didn’t draft him, and it quickly became clear that no one in the NFL could win with Leaf. When he was stuck with aging quarterbacks like Harbaugh, he did better.

And then, he went back to Arizona and revitalized Plummer’s career again. Plummer really struggled in the two years Chryst was gone, throwing 45 interceptions and just 22 touchdowns and watching his yards per attempt plummet from the upper six-yard mark down to just 5.9.

Chryst’s return, however, shot Plummer back up to his heights, returning him to the completion percentage and yard totals of Chryst’s earlier run while cutting his interception rate down to career lows.

If that’s where the story ended, we’d have a clear pattern of Chryst boosting players to their maximum potential, even if that potential is as low as Leaf’s. Plummer’s 2002 season, however, saw him right back in the dumps, and neither Jeff Blake nor Josh McCown had good seasons for Chryst in 2003, and he left as part of the house cleaning Arizona did after that season.

We’ve seen the success Chryst has had with Alex Smith and Colin Kaepernick in San Francisco, so I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that his San Diego situation was that bad, working with historic draft busts and aging veterans. He should have more success with Kaepernick in San Francisco.

At the same time, I wouldn’t call him a quarterback whisperer. He’s had good seasons with Plummer and Kaepernick, and he’s had bad seasons with them. If you want to overstretch to fit the narrative, the evidence points to Chryst being able to develop quarterbacks to a point, but only so far—he’s great to work with rookies, but he can’t get them over the hump to the next level.

It took Mike Shanahan, for example, for Plummer to become a Pro Bowl quarterback. There’s only two data points there, so it’s not the most solid description in the world, but there’s not enough in Chryst’s history for me to say that he will be good at continuing to guide Kaepernick’s development

He should at least get everything he can out of Kaepernick’s current level, though, which should be a major boost over his San Diego days.