For backup QB spot, 49ers should bring Alex Smith back to where he started.
Comeback story could continue in return to S.F.
Kyle Shanahan’s former employer in Washington could have a hand in solving the 49ers’ head coach’s current backupquarterback problem.
The Washington Football Team plans to release Alex Smith, according to multiple reports. If the 49ers are truly seeking a backup to Jimmy Garoppolo who actually can win games, rather than look like a deer trying to cross a 12lane freeway, they should think hard about signing Smith, whom San Francisco took with the No. 1 overall pick in 2005.
Will Smith be 37? Yes. Does he come with an injury history? Oh, yes (though that hasn’t stopped the 49ers in the past).
Does he know how to win games? Yes.
Smith has won 66% of his starts since leaving the 49ers eight years ago. He has guided teams to the playoffs in four of the seven seasons he has played (and it might have been five times if he wasn’t injured in 2018).
He was named the league’s Comeback Player of the Year last month, an award that he was all but guaranteed to get even before he led Washington into the playoffs. In the course of two years, following a severe leg injury, Smith went from wondering if he would ever walk again to effectively returning to being an NFL starting quarterback.
He also provided the historically unlikable Washington team with a feelgood story (along with head coach Ron Rivera, who dealt with cancer during the season). The football world was rooting for Smith, even if his team had unwittingly stumbled into all the goodwill.
In an interview with GQ last week, Smith said Washington “didn’t see it, didn’t want me there, didn’t want me to be a part of it, didn’t want me to be on the team, the roster, didn’t want to give me a chance.” Noting that a new regime had taken over the team while he was injured, Smith said he was viewed as “leftovers. … I’m this liability.”
The “liability” saved the team’s hopes, after Dwayne Haskins was ineffective (and eventually released) and backup Kyle Allen was hurt. Starting six secondhalf games, and winning five of them, Smith did enough to navigate Washington through the woeful NFC East — including beating the Nick Mullensled 49ers along the way — and make the playoffs.
Once there, though, Smith couldn’t play. He has a deep bone bruise on his surgically repaired right leg. Journeyman Taylor Heinicke got the start and Washington lost 3123 in the first round to eventual Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay.
Now, according to reports, Washington will go with Heinicke and Allen and clear cap space by cutting Smith, whose departure will free up $13.6 million.
At the end of the season, Smith said he needed to sit down with his wife, Elizabeth, and have a serious conversation about whether he should keep playing or retire and hang with her and their three young children. But it sounds more and more as though he’d like to give it a shot, perhaps with a team that doesn’t view him as a “liability.”
The Smiths have their “forever” home in Woodside and consider themselves Bay Area residents. Though Smith was treated miserably by the 49ers’ head coaches — Mike Nolan, Mike Singletary and Jim Harbaugh — he doesn’t have much connection or animosity toward the team now, except historically. The 49ers did Smith a favor when they traded him to Kansas City in 2013. And the Bay Area fans have deep affection for Smith and admiration for the grace with which he handled everything that came his way.
The 49ers have made it increasingly clear that Garoppolo will be their starter next season (though Houston’s Deshaun Watson entering the trade market could change that in a hot second). But it is also obvious that they need two other things: to draft a young quarterback whom they can groom to be the starter and to sign a backup who actually can win games.
Smith is the latter: He can win games. He is also a strong asset in a quarterback room to any young quarterback trying to learn how to succeed in the NFL as well as absorb a complicated offensive system. Smith has learned just about every offense the NFL has had to offer over the past 15 years.
Garoppolo can be that kind of asset, too, but he would be in direct competition with the younger player. Smith, who is unlikely to harbor dreams of either a longterm contract or a fulltime starting job, could be the wise QB, both a teacher and mentor, as well as a player who can win a game when needed.
Whom would you rather have join the 49ers? (Realistic suggestions, only). As The Chronicle’s Eric Branch wrote last week, there aren’t a lot of tantalizing options. Ryan Fitzpatrick? Andy Dalton? The two quarterbacks currently on the roster, Josh Rosen or Josh Johnson?
Smith would be a better choice than any of them. The Comeback Player of the Year could make another remarkable comeback — by donning a 49ers uniform.