Alex Smith enters stage left

August 20, 2020

by Steve Thomas

Washington’s resident miracle-man, quarterback Alex Smith, faced the local media yesterday in his first press conference since his horrific leg injury during the 2018 season.  He had quite a bit to say, so I thought it might be worth your time to take a closer look at some of his more insightful comments.

When questioned about when he thinks he will feel ready to play, Smith stated:

I think, again, hard to quantify. I think I’ll know. It’s going to be very clear. I think that goes into I guess kind of being comfortable with everything every day. I think I was probably the most comfortable I’ve been out there. Certainly you get jacked up for practice, for me the last couple days and just kind of getting accustomed to it again. It’d be hard for me to put a timetable on that, but like I said I do feel like every single day, today was the best I felt out there for sure. So just continuing to keep stacking them.

Smith was asked if he thought he was the best quarterback in Washington and replied,

No. I don’t know if I’ve ever thought like that. Certainly you get in competitive situations with other guys and you go and compete your tail off. I think you get to a point – there’s a lot of different ways to play quarterback, and there’s a lot of guys that play it differently. To compare them apples to apples, I think is hard. So for me I think I’ve appreciated different styles of play, the way that guys use their natural abilities to go out there and play the quarterback ability. So for me, no. I think it’s more so about me reaching my potential and that certainly was my entire career, to try to achieve that. Certainly, really it’s no different now. That’s what I keep talking about trying to find my limitations, but certainly you can see potential there, seeing what I can do, what I have left so to speak.

When asked whether he feels comfortable with his footwork, Smith responded,

I feel really good working through progressions, my foot quickness as far as getting back, working through passing progressions, ball handling, a lot of things like that. I think that, you know obviously the next progression is certainly the un-choreographed things. Certainly the time the pocket breaks down, you get pushed back, there’s a thousand and one different scenarios that come up. It’s hard to drill all those things, so I think literally, yeah, getting back to a point when those things happen and it does break down, really do you have what it takes there to obviously save the play, obviously find success, whatever that outcome is. Escape the pocket and things like that.

Interestingly, Smith told media that he hasn’t noticed any changes in his throwing mechanics:

I haven’t noticed any differences. It is something I keep my eye on, no doubt, to see if I’m compensating. That’s something I constantly look at no matter what I’m doing, whether it’d be walking or playing football. I try to evaluate if I am compensating or anything like that. So certainly when I’m throwing. I try to keep an eye on it. I don’t feel like I am very much. I feel really strong out there throwing. I haven’t really noticed much of that.

Smith also discussed how his arm felt after such a long layoff:

My arm feels great. If anything, I’ve probably got the fresh arm in the sense that I haven’t had the workload these guys have had. I think with that certainly here the next step with getting out there, obviously it’s been nice to throw to moving targets. I’ve had enough spot throwing on PUP. It’s really been nice to throw to these guys, something I haven’t done since I got injured. Even those little things are a ton of fun. Like I said, trying to take advantage of them and make the most.

Smith was also asked about his goals in returning to play, and stated,

Like I said, I think certainly no doubt there’s an end goal of actually playing at the highest level. But, I’m not getting ahead of myself. I think over the course of this rehab process, for me I’ve done the best when I’ve really focused on the steps and the next step and not really dwelling on something too far down the line. For me the next step is to certainly try to continue thriving in the opportunities I’m given, but obviously getting into a team scenario, getting in on 11-on-11 and seeing if I can play. I think it will reveal itself. We get filmed every single day. We watch film every single day. You toe the line out there. It’s always obvious I think if you can do it out there or not for everybody. I don’t think it’ll be any different for me.

This was Smith’s response to a question about whether his leg hurt when he ran:

No, definitely not pain out there. When I got the rod put in, not to go into too much detail, but they do go through your knee. So certainly there’s some things I’ve worked through. If and when I do get some discomfort, it happens to be up in my knee area, which has nothing to do obviously with my bone. It’s something I think throughout all this that has continued to get better and better and better. Certainly the last few weeks have been the best. With the orthotics, different ones have different advantages and different ones are more comfortable than others, so that’s one of the things I’ve had to deal with. Certainly having a brace in your shoe is something I’ve had to get used to.

Finally, Smith had some insightful comments regarding his motivation behind the ESPN E:60 documentary:

Going back to the hospital, and even back then was obviously when I was deciding to go forward with documenting this, obviously scary just in the sense where I had no idea where this was going to go, what it was going to look like. At that point, certainly I had a lot of negative thoughts in my head that it wasn’t going to go very far. I think ultimately knowing that it was such a unique situation, and as I did work through it and selfishly kicking myself for not documenting what it was like – certainly as you get removed from things, it’s easier to look back on them. Certainly when you’re in the middle of that, it’s something I appreciate now, having documented it, to have those memories in place what it was like at certain times. I think also just as far as being grateful, even laying there in the hospital bed, I think keeping perspective is important. Even keeping perspective in life with the things that go on in the world, I’m incredibly lucky even in that moment to be lying in a hospital bed even where I was in life with the rest of my family so healthy, the rest of my life ahead of me at that point when things had stabilized. Whatever was left of my leg, it was still obviously in the big picture, incredibly fortunate and to have people all over the world that would have traded positions with me in the blink of an eye. So, I was just trying to keep that perspective. Certainly, I think that counter-bounced all the moments I had, the ‘Why me?’ moments as you’re feeling sorry for yourself in there. Just for me, trying to counteract that consciously with obviously trying to keep perspective with the bigger picture.