Somehow, the Chiefs beat the Denver Broncos Sunday night. Alex Smith surprised just about everyone in Chiefs Kingdom with that final fourth quarter drive.
For about 57 minutes in Sunday night’s improbable Chiefs comeback win at Denver, Alex Smith was once again horrid under center at the quarterback position. And by horrid, I mean it was absolutely unfathomable that Kansas City won that football game.
The Broncos had 464 yards of total offense Sunday night. Trevor Siemian tossed the pigskin for 368 yards and added 23 yards on the ground.
To contrast that, the Chiefs offense (as a whole) mustered 273 yards on the offensive side of the ball. Denver outgained Kansas City by 191 yards and had six offensive plays of 20 yards or more, while the Chiefs could only get one such play.
I get it. I’ll get plenty of responses of: “But the Chiefs won! That’s all that matters”; “Defense wins championships, and our boys on D got it done!”; and “Alex did enough to win. That’s all we ask of him.”
No one expects Smith to be Tom Brady or Drew Brees out here. That’s too unrealistic. However, I’ve made the point and I’ll continue to make it: the Chiefs will never win a Super Bowl with the Smith that we’ve become accustomed to watching.
The folks at Pro Football Focus (@PFF) are thinking along the same lines as I am. Here’s what Sam Monson wrote after the game about Smith:
"Only Minnesota’s Sam Bradford has a lower average depth of target this season than Smith’s 7.0 yards downfield … Smith has had the league’s lowest average depth of target in each of the past three seasons, and hasn’t ranked higher than 31st in the league dating back to 2008. He does not, cannot, and will not atack down field in the way everybody wants to see their QB do."
Smith refuses to throw the ball downfield. Some of the blame could be put on the play calling from Andy Reid, but at the end of the day, Smith is the one out there throwing the ball and making decisions.