It may have been easy to forget, but watching the E60 ‘Project 11’ documentary on Friday night reminded the sporting world just how much of a raw deal Alex Smith got when he was the quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers.
Smith, who last played with the Washington Redskins before suffering a gruesome leg injury, had started the first nine games of the 2012 season for SF, going 6-2-1 in that time. However, a concussion knocked him out of action, and his backup, Colin Kaepernick, took over. He would never regain his job at QB1, and was later traded to the Chiefs, and then the Redskins.
It would be easy for Smith to hold a bit of a grudge against Kaepernick, who stepped in and led the 49ers to a Super Bowl appearance in 2013. However, he doesn’t seem to feel that way. While Kaepernick has effectively been blackballed from the NFL for leading a social justice protest by kneeling for the national anthem before each game, Smith finds it absurd that he doesn’t have a job in the league.
“It was hard to kind of see that trajectory because he was playing so good, and doing things nobody had done,” Smith said on ESPN Radio. “I think he still holds the single-game rushing record for a quarterback. It was crazy.
“So with that said, it was so absurd — I think equally — that it was only a few years later when you’re like, ‘This guy doesn’t have a job.’ That was hard to imagine. It still is, a guy with his ability and his trajectory that all of a sudden wasn’t playing.”
Neither player is currently playing in the NFL, as Kaepernick waits for his opportunity, and Smith works to rehab his leg back into playing shape. With either ever play professionally again? The odds are definitely stacked against them, which would have been crazy to think just five years ago.
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