Alex Smith should not be your scapegoat

Kansas City Chiefs vs Denver Broncos

When I first watched this game, I was very disappointed in what I saw the first time around on the broadcast. While there are still numerous things to be frustrated about in this game, Smith played much better than I thought once I watched the game a couple more times. While he made some inaccurate throws, he made some really good throws as well.

Now I know that some of you are going to want to bring the box score stats to the table and argue that he had a terrible game. That’s why we are going to focus on some of those in this game.

Smith went 14/31 for 202 yards and a touchdown against the Denver Broncos. Those stats are definitely not what you want to see and read like a bad game by Smith. Well, that’s why we look outside of the box score and fill in the gaps.

Let’s take a look at the completion percentage first since everyone loves to point that one out. Smith was forced to leave the pocket and throw the ball away five times. That brings that to 14/26. Then you have the plays that weren’t on him because of drops. Man were there some drops in this game. Let’s look at a couple of them why don’t we.

In the early part of the game, Smith threw a really nice pass to wide receiver Demarcus Robinson who heard footsteps and didn’t catch the ball. The only thing that saved that drive was the penalty for the hit up high on Robinson. If Robinson makes that catch, you can add another 24 yards to that box score.

Then you have a play like this late in the game to really put the Broncos away and your second tight end Demetrius Harris drops a perfectly placed ball. This wasn’t the only third down that Harris dropped a pass on either this game. Take this one alone though and add another 24 yards and a touchdown to that box score.

Those stats just from the two dropped passes are looking a lot nicer, aren’t they? There were a handful of drops putting it nicely. Either way, just taking those two plays that were easy catches would have made the yards and quarterback rating much better.

People also want to remember the bad passes by Smith in the game against Denver. While he did have some bad passes in this game as well, and I’m usually the first to point those out, he had some absolutely incredible plays as well.

One of the biggest knocks on Smith coming into this year was that he was not willing to throw to a receiver unless they were wide open. Well, take a look at that pass to wide receiver Tyreek Hill going up against arguably the best man coverage cornerback in the league Aqib Talib.

The Broncos defense played really great coverage all night against the Chiefs forcing Smith to make some really nice throws to be able to make anything work. We saw multiple really good passes in this game and without those passes, the Chiefs don’t win this game.

Especially with Denver having one of the best defenses in the league, I think that Smith showed in this game he can win against top defenses.