A year after Jared Goff and Carson Wentz were selected one and two overall in the NFL Draft, five months after the Bears traded up to take Mitchell Trubisky and days after DeShaun Watson made his NFL debut, it’s looking like the league may have a new batch of quarterback superstars.
But it’s not any of those young quarterbacks who are taking the leap, at least not yet. No, the NFL’s new superstar QBs are ... Sam Bradford and Alex Smith? Really? OK. Sure.
Bradford and Smith, with a combined 19 years of NFL service entering this season and exactly no one’s pick for breakthrough players, both put up eye-popping numbers in Week 1. Smith had a career game in the NFL opener last Thursday, throwing for 368 yards a four touchdowns in an upset of the Patriots at Gillette Stadium, and Bradford went for 27-for-32 for 346 yards and three touchdowns in Minnesota’s opening win on Monday night. Of course, many a terrible sports column has been written using a small sample size from early in a season. Remember the great Ryan Fitzpatrick rise of 2015? Yeah. That didn’t quite pan out. But there are legitimate reasons to think Smith and Bradford can continue to produce like this. Maybe not 350 yards and 3 TDs every week, but Top 10 or higher quarterback play over the full season – essentially the jump Matt Ryan made last year in his ninth NFL season.
Entering the season, Bradford and Smith were seen as exactly average NFL quarterbacks. Nowhere near the Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers level that has television broadcasters fanning themselves after each pass, but also far from the punchline status of the warm bodies that occupy the QB positions for the Jets and Jaguars. Smith and Bradford are not players their teams have ever rushed to replace, nor are they guys who wouldn’t quickly be dumped if a clearly better option became available. As one (highly-esteemed) columnist once said of Smith, his NFL career could succinctly be described as: “¯\_(ツ)_/¯.”
But in the case of Bradford, at least, Week 1 was not some fluke or aberration. In fact, he has now thrown for three touchdowns in each of his last three games dating back to last season. Three games is still a small sample size, though, so let’s extend it all the way back to Week 9 of the 2016 season, when Pat Shurmur was named offensive coordinator in place of Norv Turner. Shurmur, Bradford’s coordinator in St. Louis in 2010 and Philadelphia in 2015, has helped his quarterback take the Vikings offense to heights not seen since Brett Favre was gunslinging all over the Metrodome in 2009. In Bradford’s 10 games under Shurmur in Minnesota, he has put up 15 touchdowns, four interceptions and 2,781 yards – numbers that project to 4,449 yards, 24 TDs and just 6 INTs over a full season. Not exactly mid-rate QB production.
Despite Bradford now being in his eighth NFL season and nearing 30, we are really only now getting our first fair and extended look at the 2010 No1 overall pick. After playing in every game in his rookie season – and playing fairly well for a first-year QB, including breaking Peyton Manning’s record for rookie completions – Bradford missed nearly half of his second season with a high ankle sprain. The next year he posted solid numbers and then in 2013, after coming out of the gate strong with 14 TD and 4 INTs in just seven games, went down with a torn ACL. That same, surgically-repaired ACL, blew out on him again in the 2014 preseason, costing the whole season. Then there was a one-year stop with the Eagles during whatever Chip Kelly was trying to do to in Philadephia, followed by a surprising trade to Minnesota before the 2016 season. For all his NFL service, Bradford has had none of the health or stability a quarterback needs to really excel. He has that finally and, with receiver Stephon Diggs and Adam Theilen, two high-end receiver targets.
Lack of stability has not been a legitimate excuse for Alex Smith. Despite missing just three games in his five seasons with the Chiefs, Smith’s claim to fame is being the first name that pops into football fans’ heads when hearing “game manager.” I’d say his picture would be beside the term in the dictionary, but photos feel too flashy for Alex Smith’s game. But once upon a time, this very same Alex Smith actually ran a high-flying offense. In his final year at Utah in 2004, Smith threw for 32 touchdowns to just four interceptions, and also ran for 631 yards and 10 TDs. He was so dynamic — yes, Alex Smith, dynamic — that San Francisco used the No1 overall pick on him in 2005.
But since entering the NFL, and leaving Urban Meyer’s spread offense, Alex Smith has been the king of the conservative checkdown. That was, until last Thursday night in New England when Andy Reid and Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy decided to bust out some of the spread playbook to showcase the all-around abilities of playmakers Kareem Hunt and Tyreek Hill. But in doing so, we were all reminded what Smith is capable of in an offense that actually attacks.
Kansas City’s Week 2 game in Philadelphia will tell us if Smith’s opening night performance was an aberration or a look at things to come. If the game plan goes back to being more conservative than a Fox News host, Smith will go back to being … well, Alex Smith. Considering the NFL track records of Reid and Smith, playing it safe might unfortunately be the path they choose. But if the dynamic offense is here to stay, Alex Smith, the NFL’s official game manager, could have his NFL breakout season at the young age of 33. And then the only question might be if he or Sam Bradford is the NFL’s most exciting quarterback.
