Alex Smith Is Not Good At Anything Except for Winning

Alex Smith's press conference this Thursday finally put the charade of pretending there was a possibility of the trade not going through to rest.  Alex Smith is the quarterback for the Washington Redskins for at least the near future.  His introduction by Doug Williams, however, had some portends that every Redskins fan should have taken as a sign that there is still a lot to be done in this offseason to make sure there is no regret about letting Kirk Cousins walk out the door.  Williams alluded to the fact that there are still holes on this roster that need to be addressed in order to make the team more complete.  What he meant was that the holes needed to be filled in order to make Alex Smith a winner here in Washington.  It may be hard for Redskins fans to accept, but Alex Smith is statistically inferior to Cousins over the last three seasons in almost all major categories except for one.  And it is the one that has the most factors attached to its execution.  Winning.

Alex Smith has been able to win 31 regular season games over the last three seasons.  His regular season win total in that time span is only eclipsed by Cam Newton and Tom Brady.  A look at his total stats over that time frame, however, should make Redskins fans wonder how he achieved that feat.  Alex Smith has 46 regular season starts over the last three seasons, and when comparing his numbers to the 20 other quarterbacks with 40 or more starts (plus Aaron Rodgers who has 39 starts over the last three seasons) his numbers are fairly pedestrian if not concerning.  Alex Smith has thrown for only 11,030 yards over the last three seasons which ranks him 13th out of this group.  He has only thrown 61 TD's over the last three seasons.  The only quarterbacks lower than Smith in that area are Joe Flacco, Marcus Mariota, and Tyrod Taylor.  Looking at that stat in another light would be to compare Alex Smith's 61 TD's to those quarterbacks who have had a comparable amount of attempts.  Smith has 1464 attempts over the last three seasons.  The other quarterbacks who have between 1400-1499 attempts are Cam Newton, Aaron Rodgers, and Andy Dalton.  Rodgers and Dalton both have less attempts (1420 and 1445) and more touchdowns (87 and 68) than Alex Smith, and Cam Newton has thrown 76 touchdowns on only 33 more attempts.  What is even more staggering is that all three of these quarterbacks have less total completions than Alex Smith, with Newton having 119 less completed passes than Smith over the last three seasons.  Even if you factor in Smith's 8 rushing touchdowns, he ranks with Flacco, Mariota, and Taylor as the only quarterbacks out of this group who have accounted for less than 70 touchdowns over the last three seasons.  So how is Alex Smith the third winningest quarterback since 2015?  The answer would be in his supporting cast.

When Doug Williams stated that the current holes on the Redskins roster need to be filled, he was subconsciously indicting Alex Smith's record as a winner in the NFL.  Alex Smith has had the luxury of having a Top 10 rushing offense in yards per game twice over the last three seasons in Kansas City, and he has had a Top 10 scoring defense (in points per game allowed) twice as well over that same time frame.  To give perspective on that stat, Tom Brady is the only other quarterback with 40 or more starts who has had teams be Top 10 in both those areas over multiple seasons since 2015.  Doug Williams is, or should be, keenly aware of this fact considering that the Redskins never gave Kirk Cousins either of those luxuries over his three years as a starter on this team.  In fact, Kansas City's worst performances in these categories since 2015 (109.3 rushing ypg in 2016, and 21.2 ppg allowed in 2017) were better than any season the Redskins have in those categories over the same time frame.  This means that Alex Smith has not been relied upon to be the primary provider of wins over the last three seasons in Kansas City, and he is walking into a situation that is the exact opposite.  Kirk Cousins had to be the main guy the Redskins turned to in order win games over the last three seasons, especially last season where his offensive line single-handedly kept the sports medicine trade open in DC, his most talented receiving target played in only 6 games, and his defense went through countless iterations due to injury.  The Redskins roster is much worse than the one Alex Smith left in Kansas City and Doug Williams knows it.  Williams also knows, or should know, that the only way Alex Smith has been successful is when the supporting cast around him has been successful as well, which makes this a pivotal offseason for the tenure of all who are invested in the Redskins success.

The Redskins do not have Kareem Hunt's productivity, or Tyreek Hill's speed, or Travis Kelce's durability, or Justin Houston's sack production, or Eric Berry's coverage ability at safety.  Most people in the know have stated that the Redskins current personnel does not have the talent the Chiefs had when Alex Smith was their quarterback, and it has only gotten worse for the Redskins so far in free agency.  It will be up to Doug Williams to remedy the situation by putting the necessary pieces in place to make sure that Alex Smith has the necessary tools to be successful this season.  It will be up to Jay Gruden to make sure that Alex Smith can use those tools to keep the Redskins win total comparable to what it was under Kirk Cousins.  Alex Smith has proven that he can be a winner with the right supporting cast, and given that his best statistical season of his 13 year career came last year shows that he may be able to take on the challenges that the Redskins roster poses.  But this season will be a test of front office acumen as mush as it will be about quarterback play.  Doug Williams will need to acquire the right pieces, and Jay Gruden will need to position them so that Alex Smith can do the only thing he has been good at over the last five years of his career.  Winning.

Williams's Legacy, Wilson's Destiny, and Griffin's........?

Forty-eight hours ago (as I write this on Monday Night), Doug Williams held the distinction of being the ONLY African American quarterback to win a Super Bowl.  After the Seahawks’s dismantling of the Denver Broncos on Sunday, that statement must be amended to the FIRST African American quarterback to win a Super Bowl.  And let’s be honest Redskins fans.  When Robert Griffin III was drafted everyone of you thought it would be Griffin who would carry on the legacy of Doug Williams and be the next African American quarterback to win the Super Bowl.  Alas it is Russell Wilson who has become the Buzz Aldrin of this mission, leaving Griffin to watch from afar in the orbiter like that other guy.  It is funny how fate can come together sometimes, and a look into the history of Williams’s Super Bowl, Wilson’s Super Bowl, and the fateful Griffin/Wilson game almost a year ago makes one wonder if this is all happening by accident.

            A comparison between the careers and Super Bowls of Doug Williams and Russell Wilson lead to some eerie similarities that makes one wonder if Wilson’s win was destiny.  We all know that Wilson was drafted by the Seahawks to back up Matt Flynn, who made his career off of one good game, and Wilson was quickly elevated to starter after Flynn was seen to be inadequate.  But did you know Williams replaced a quarterback with an equally dubious resume?  Jay Schroeder had one start in college for UCLA that was famous for an improbable game winning pass that landed him a third round selection by the Redskins in 1984.  Schroeder had success with the Redskins and led them to an NFC championship in the 1986-1987 season, but he was benched for Williams towards the end of the ‘87-’88 season because of injury and inconsistent play.  Unlike Wilson, Williams was far from a second year quarterback, but Williams’s Super Bowl XXII start came in his second year with the Redskins.  OK, that was a stretch, but do you remember how the Seahawks won their conference championship? One of the best corners in the league deflected a pass in the endzone to ice the game.  Do you know how the Redskins won their conference championship in 1988?  A hit by Darrell Green on a 4^th down pass from the 6 yard line forced an incompletion in the endzone and the Redskins iced the game.  Starting to get weird, right?  What is even weirder is that both Super Bowls were played in stadiums that had never held a Super Bowl before that game.  And in both games the Broncos set records for scoring fast.  In Super Bowl XXII the Broncos scored the fastest touchdown in Super Bowl history (at the time) 1:57 into the game.  Sunday they set the fastest score ever in a Super Bowl with their bad snap.  Oh, and did you know that Peyton Manning was the league MVP this year?  I only bring that up because the league MVP for the ’87-’88 season was in attendance Sunday night to watch his former team get pasted like they did 26 years ago.  That’s right.  John Elway was the league MVP the year Doug Williams and the Redskins ran him out of Jack Murphy Stadium.  I can probably find some other flimsy pieces of evidence for this notion, but suffice it to say that there are strange parallels between Russell Wilson and Doug Williams that make it seem like Wilson was destined to finally carry on Williams’s legacy.   He did so by vanquishing the one Redskins fans thought would carry this legacy not but one year ago, and that fateful game could be a microcosm of how one career soared while the other flamed out.

            I was at Fed Ex field on January 6, 2013 when Wilson met Griffin for the first time.  Up to that point both quarterbacks had been heralded as the future of the quarterback position, and their shared success through the season pointed towards careers that would be inextricably intertwined towards success.  That game, however, put Robert Griffin and Russell Wilson on divergent paths.  One came out of that game with a career altering injury that led to a myriad of questions throughout the subsequent season that evolved to the point of questioning his ability to lead a professional football team.  One came out of that game heralded as a game winner.  He may not put up monster stats, but he makes the necessary plays to put his team in a position to win.  Now Russell Wilson finds himself at the highest peak of his profession while Robert Griffin if left to figure out how to rebuild a dysfunctional 3-13 team.  It is funny how one instance in time can drastically change the fate of two individuals who seemed to be headed in the same direction.  Before that game on January 6, 2013, most people would have said that either Griffin or Wilson could be the next Doug Williams and win a Super Bowl.  On February 2, 2014 one fulfilled that destiny.  The other is still waiting to fulfill that destiny in the city where it all started 26 years ago, and left hoping that that game on January 6th was not a harbinger of bad things to come.