Redskins bank on Smith as leader
New quarterback settling in with Gruden’s offense, Washington surroundings
ASHBURN, Va. – One sequence remains etched in the mind of Jay Gruden nearly eight months later when reflecting on Alex Smith’s ability.
Gruden’s Redskins had tied the hosting, and undefeated, Chiefs 20-20 with a 40-yard field goal late in that Week 4 Monday night game in October. They just needed a stop against Smith.
“We left a little too much time on the clock,” Gruden said with a roll of the eyes of the eventual 29-20 loss, “and Josh (Doctson) couldn’t come down with that seam ball, and we give them the ball back with a field goal that tied it and they come down, and we lost contain, and Alex popped out of there and threw a little off-scheduled play to (Albert) Wilson for 37 yards and they got the field goal and beat us. … I remember that one well.”
Fortunately for Gruden and Washington, Smith no longer represents a problem for the Redskins defense. A late January trade sent Smith to the nation’s capital, signaling the end of the Kirk Cousins era and a fresh start for all parties involved.
The move also brought a degree of déjà vu for Smith, whom the 49ers in 2013 traded to Kansas City. Four playoff appearances in five seasons weren’t enough to ensure security for Smith. Patrick Mahomes, the 10th overall pick of the 2017 draft, is now set to take over.
“I don’t take it personal,” he told USA TODAY after Wednesday’s practice. “I take the challenge of me going out there and winning ballgames and playing quarterback at the highest level. Every year there’s a bunch of dudes coming in. I know there’s only 32 of these jobs.”
Four months after the trade, and following a four-year extension that features $71 million in guaranteed salary, Smith’s acclimation to his new surroundings remains in its infancy.
“We’re already throwing a lot at him,” Gruden said. “No huddle, two-minute, red zone. You know he’s been wellcoached by (Jim) Harbaugh, and Andy Reid. And he’s been through the ringer as a player.”
Reid and Jon Gruden, Jay’s brother and the Raiders coach, share West Coast Offense roots having coached together in Green Bay. But Smith has still had plenty to learn.
“They diverged long enough ago that, they’re both like Latin-based languages, but it’s kind of like Italian and Spanish,” Smith told USA TODAY after Wednesday’s practice. “It’s a different language, but certainly the structure of the playbook and how we call plays and do things, there’s some carryover there.”
Outside of football, things also remain far from settled. Smith is still liv- ing at an area Residence Inn. He and his wife have found a home, but it’s not yet ready for them to move in. With Smith’s two sons in school up until last Friday, he spent the offseason commuting between Northern Virginia and Kansas City.
But Smith counts that as a blessing of sorts, as the time away from family has allowed him to focus squarely on football.
By the start of the season, Gruden & Co. hope that Smith will show why the team opted to hit the reset button, moving on from a rising younger quarterback in 29-year-old Cousins, who had thrown for more than 4,000 yards in three consecutive seasons, in favor of an older, twice-discarded signal caller.
Sure, Cousins became the first quarterback to land a fully guaranteed multiyear contract ($84 million from Minnesota). But Washington brass hesitated to meet Cousins’ asking price both in
2016 and 2017 because they still saw holes in his game, particularly when he was under pressure. Red-zone production also represented one of Washington’s shortcomings with Cousins at the helm. Gruden’s offenses rarely had trouble racking up yards, but Washington had a 37.5% success rate in the red zone in the last three years.
The Redskins believe Smith will bring another element to their offense because of his ability to improvise. Smith will never find himself included in a conversation involving the most strong-armed quarterbacks in the league, but he does rank among the most accurate (his 67.5% completion rate was third highest in the NFL in
2017) and he boasts great ability to operate beyond the pocket.
“Alex’s M.O. is his ability to move around and make plays,” Gruden ex- plained. “We’re hoping that the critical situations with the ad-lib plays, offschedule plays that we’ll get better at. Those things you can’t coach. They are plays you want him to make. I’m hoping there are plays where the coverage is just blanketed and he’s able to move around a little and make something happen. That’s an important part of football.”
But Smith knows what matters most: The end result.
“You want to go out and prove them right as much as anybody, and how do you do that? Going out and win ballgames,” he said. “That’s the reality. … I’m far more comfortable with that and dealing with expectations than I was earlier in my career.
“Now, I embrace it. I’m kinda, ‘Flip it. This isn’t going to last forever, and not many people get to do this and this challenge.’ ”