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For much of his 14-year career, Washington Redskins quarterback Alex Smith has had to hear far too many times what he can’t do. Going back to his college days in Utah where he led his Urban Myer coached team to a perfect 11-0 undefeated 2005 season, he had to hear what he wouldn’t be to accomplish.
This year Smith has amassed 1,205 yards passing through five games. Those may not look like solid passing yards but the Redskins have a new found run game that’s led by future Hall of Fame running back Adrian Peterson. To Smith’s credit, however, he has thrown six touchdowns passes with only two interceptions. That is exactly what the Redskins knew they were getting when they traded with the Kansas City Chiefs to acquire the Bremerton, Washington native.
Smith, 34, has been an important piece to the puzzle for the Redskins and that has helped them jump out to sole possession of first place in the NFC East division with the Dallas Cowboys coming to town this weekend.
Smith may not possess the flashy numbers that many of his peers may produce. He does do something that is a staple of a solid signal-caller, however. He wins games!
Over the course of his career, Smith has won everywhere he has played.
While in San Francisco, Smith gave way to Colin Kaepernick after not getting his starting job back when he was injured. From 2005 to 2012 with the 49ers, Smith’s record was 38-36-1. That was during some really lean years in the bay area before he was coached by current Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh in his last few seasons.
Despite a win, Redskins’ coaches and players speak of consistency
Following the 2012 season, Smith was traded to the Kansas City Chiefs. He quarterbacked the Chiefs for five seasons of playoff caliber football and in fact, won more games during that time in the NFL than every quarterback not named Tom Brady (New England) or Russel Wilson (Seattle). During his time in Kansas City, his overall record was 50-26. After last season, Smith again had to step aside for another young upstart QB in Patrick Mahomes which led to his trade to the Redskins.
After five games in DC, Smith’s record now stands at 91-64-1. It’s not easy to win games in the NFL but for Smith to have done it consistently, speaks volumes of his leadership traits. That is something that was said to me by a former Kansas City Chiefs colleague who told me when the trade for Smith to the Redskins was announced, that Washington just got a leader of men.
Several of Smith’s new teammates have openly talked about his leadership and lead by example approach that seems to be well received in the locker room.
After the Redskins big win Sunday over the Carolina Panthers, wide receiver Paul Richardson who was on the receiving end of a Smith touchdown pass spoke about the QBs’ leadership.
“Nonstop. Nonstop leader man,” Richardson said about Smith. “The game is over, and I’m over there cuddling Alex like, ‘Hey don’t be mad at me,’ for some of the stuff and he’s like, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it,’ and he’s over there talking about what he needs to do at practice this week. I think his maturity, his leadership, we needed that. I had a good leader before, but having him, I feel comfortable in this offense and I know the offense is comfortable following his lead, and it’s carrying over to the whole team.”
Richardson played in Seattle with Wilson so for him to give his current QB that assessment should be noted as legit.
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The Redskins are sitting in first-place because they have put together a team and not a bunch of talented individuals. A lot of their early season success should be traced back to the professional approach of Smith and his demeanor. Smith talks regularly about the “team” first and did so Sunday after the win.
“I think today was a great example of everybody kind of having a hand in it, which was nice coming off of last week…everybody having a big hand in this win,” Smith said. “Special teams had some huge plays from the turnover to [Dustin Hopkins] hit a couple of big kicks for us… defense though I mean to buckle down there like with them driving and holding sealing the game off for us so yeah, I feel like great team win on a short week bouncing back.”
Naysayers will point to his 2-5 postseason record as not much to be confident about. When looking at the names of the QB’s Smith has lost to in the playoffs, however, he has no reason to hang his head. Those losses have been to the likes of Tom Brady, Ben Rothlesberger, Eli Manning, Andrew Luck, and Marcus Marriota. Outside of the latter two listed, the “other” three are all Super Bowl winners and MVP’s, as well as future Hall of Famers.
The Redskins would like nothing more than for Smith’s leadership and experience of playing in those seven playoff games to aid in their upward trajectory and translate into a postseason birth for the first time since 2015.
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