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.
Tank Carradine
The very first move Trent Baalke made with the first of his two new second round choices from the Chiefs was to flip it to the Tennessee Titans, who grabbed wideout Justin Hunter at No. 34 overall. In return, the Niners slipped down 6 spots to No. 40 overall and picked up the Titans’ 7th round choice that season as well as a future 3rd round pick. (Yes, sweet deal for sure.)
We’ll get back into the weeds on the specific trades, but let’s stop here to pause because the Niners ended up keeping this particular choice at No. 40: Tank Carradine.
Carradine was a beast coming into the draft from Florida State. The talented defensive end had 11 sacks for the Seminoles in 2012 before tearing his ACL, and the fact that he was still drafted in the Top 40 tells you just how high he would have went if he’d been healthy.
Unfortunately, Carradine’s pro career hasn’t yet matched what the 49ers envisioned when they first drafted him. Part of that is on him, as he’s not been a very consistent performer at all. However, it’s up to coaches to change their schemes to fit the players, and Carradine has definitely suffered from being asked to do what is not natural—including positional changes, weight changes and the like.
After starting only 1 game in his first 36 as a pro, Carradine started 7 of 8 games last year (he missed half the season on injured reserve due to a high ankle sprain). If he finds his fit this year, that’d be a nice boost at the right time for the Niners, who could use help at edge rusher. That’s especially so since Carradine is playing out his last year contractually for the team.
Corey Lemonier
Using the 7th round choice they picked up from the Titans, Baalke used that extra pick as leverage to move up the very next round after taking Carradine. In a trade with the Green Bay Packers, the Niners traded their own third for the Packers’ third and gave up the 7th rounder to make up the difference. The reason: they wanted Corey Lemonier.
Lemonier came into the NFL as a young tweener (OLB/DE) who had been quite productive on the edge at Auburn. Coming into the NFL, it was easy to picture the one-two of Carradine and Lemonier as a dynamic new duo to bolster the front seven. Both the front office and fans had reasons to be ecstatic about the team’s pass rushing potential.
Unfortunately, Lemonier’s career has been far less productive than Carradine’s at this point, and the Niners parted ways with Lemonier long ago. This was the classic bust pick of a guy who has enough raw skills to get after the quarterback in college yet can’t make the transition to the pros. All of the signs were there for the Niners scouts: the stiff hips, the poor hands, the lack of various pass rushing moves.
Lemonier had a single sack in 42 career games with the Niners. Since then, Lemonier has bounced around the NFL from the Browns to the Lions to the Jets and he’s now a free agent.
Chris Borland
The 49ers would end up holding on to that extra third round pick they grabbed from the Titans in the Justin Hunter deal. In fact they would keep it all to themselves even through the next draft as well, using it on heralded linebacker Chris Borland.
It’s easy to look at the bigger picture from the outside and think, “How did the Niners mess up with all these picks?” However, it’s not that simple. The best argument for this is the surprisingly short career of Chris Borland.
Remember this: coming out of college, Borland had been told all the reasons why he would never make it at the pro level. He was too slow (he ran the 40-yard dash in 4.83 seconds) or too short (5’11). He didn’t test well at the Combine and many scouts couldn’t project him to succeed at the next level. Trent Baalke and his staff knew better.
They knew that Borland had been an all-world linebacker at Wisconsin, that he was a tremendous tackler who could get after the passer as well as play in coverage. They knew he played through pain and served as a strong leader on the defense. They knew he could captain the middle of any field, including the NFL.
They were right. He didn’t even start until Week 7, but he had 18 tackles in his second start, 17 more in his third start and 2 interceptions in the game after that. In just 8 total starts that year (and 14 appearances overall), he had 103 total tackles, 2 interceptions, 5 passes defended and 1 sack. In a year where Patrick Willis was getting ready to call it quits, Borland’s emergence was a revelation.
And then it was over.
That next offseason, less than one year after hearing his name called by the 49ers in the draft, Borland decided to retire due to the increased warnings about CTE and head trauma related to playing football. Rather than give the Niners a true star linebacker in the middle of their defense, they were left searching to fill another hole.
They were also 0 for 3 in their use of Dorsey’s draft picks.
Carlos Hyde
The 49ers’ journey to grab Carlos Hyde is a circuitous route, one that involves three trades that ultimately let them move from No. 56 overall (the original pick) to No. 57. Yep, sometimes the NFL is like that. No matter how they got there, they ended up grabbing the most productive player of the four they got out of the Chiefs picks in running back Carlos Hyde.
Hyde entered the NFL draft as a true bruiser, an Ohio State product with the sort of size and strength and contact balance to punish defenses for four full quarters. If the goal was to take some heat off of Colin Kaepernick, Hyde was the perfect ticket.
Unfortunately, Hyde is just now beginning to round into the sort of form that the Niners envisioned when they drafted him. Frank Gore cast a long shadow during his rookie season, and Hyde finished the next two years on injured reserve. This last year was the first season in which Hyde was healthy enough to play in all 16 games.
His detractors will point to the fact that Hyde has never had a single 1,000 yard rushing season and that he averaged less than 4 yards/carry in 2017. However, Hyde also caught 59 passes last year (up from his previous career high of 27) and he’s still capable of moving the chains as much as ever. For some reason, the Niners have been slow to feature him in true bell cow fashion.
The bottom line:
We all know the rest of the story after the initial Alex Smith trade.
Fast forward five seasons and the Chiefs have become a perennial playoff contender in the AFC. The Niners have become a mediocre franchise. Alex Smith has gone 50-26 as a starting quarterback for the Chiefs in five seasons. The 49ers, meanwhile, have a record of 33-47 in that time with three straight last-place finishes in the NFC West.
Here’s what’s incredible about the Niners at this point, at least to me. Those 2 picks turned into 4 picks overall, and the Niners were applauded across the board for the way they worked the draft. Making a lot of noise, however, doesn’t necessarily mean progress.
All of those players, not just 2 but 4, should have turned into key contributors and the Niners should be a team on the rise. Four prospects for an extra quarterback should have kickstarted a youth movement already in place. Instead, the Niners were forced to reset, yet again, last offseason.
Fortunately San Francisco recently pulled off another significant quarterback trade, one in which they targeted someone to stop the bleeding. So far, Jimmy Garoppolo looks the part. They’ve apparently learned that moving and shaking only leads to temporary applause, while having a concrete vision for what is most important will move you forward.
At least it did for Kansas City. Thanks, Alex.