Looking back at the 49ers haul from the first Alex Smith trade

For the second time in his career, Alex Smith has been involved in a major trade. Let’s take a look back at the trade haul from the first time around.

Five years ago, the phrase “Alex Smith trade” was as hot of a search term as it is now.

It was 2013 when the Kansas City Chiefs held a clear vision for Alex Smith. The power couple known as head coach Andy Reid and general manager John Dorsey had just taken over a franchise crippled by poor quarterback play (and several other poor things, but nothing was worse than the QB play). If Dorsey and Reid were going to stop the bleeding, they had to apply the pressure there.

If you want to know how disgusting the wound was for the Chiefs in 2012, consider this: the team had 8 passing touchdowns and 20 interceptions that season. Their opponents? 29 touchdowns and 7 interceptions. (Note: Going from a Matt Cassel stat line to an Alex Smith is a very large leap, and I think most of Chiefs Kingdom has forgotten what it’s like to live on the other side, but that’s another story entirely.)

Surveying the landscape, the Chiefs had a bit of ammo known as the No. 1 pick in the draft. They also had some cap space. But what made matters worse was that the draft class was not good (Dorsey knew it then and we all know it now), and in retrospect, the top quarterback was Mike Glennon, at least so far, and it’s not even close. E.J. Manuel? Geno Smith? Matt Barkley? Ryan Nassib?

There are (very) good reasons Dorsey traded for a veteran.

If the San Francisco 49ers were your basic stoic franchise, content to take whatever comes their way, they would have received the No. 34 overall pick in the 2013 NFL Draft and the No. 56 pick in the next one. Those were the two initial picks surrendered by the Chiefs in the deal.

Trent Baalke, the 49ers general manager, had a vision for those picks, however. He wanted to multiply them as much as possible. One pick turned into two. Two picks turned into four. By the end, the Niners had four total prospects in return for their two initial picks.

(Quick note: the two players taken at those original draft slots: wide receiver Justin Hunter and wide receiver Cody Latimer. Suffice it to say, no one used those draft slots well.)

Now that we’ve got enough time to evaluate the deal, let’s take a look at the bigger picture and draw some final conclusions about both franchises and the lessons learned in the end.