Where does Alex Smith rank among the Kansas City Chiefs best quarterbacks ever?

Now that Alex Smith’s time with the Kansas City Chiefs is up what should his legacy be? Was he one of the best Chiefs quarterbacks of all time?

Alex Smith’s tenure with the Kansas City Chiefs has come to a close. The Kansas City Chiefs and general manager Brett Veach pulled off a highly praised deal with the Washington Redskins this past week. Like most Chiefs fans, I was very happy with the trade. Like most Chiefs fans, I am also very excited for the Patrick Mahomes era in Kansas City to begin.

However, before I turn my attention to the future and what the Mahomes era might bring, I thought we should take a moment and really look back at what Alex Smith did in Kansas City and what his legacy should be.

Before I did some research and really tried to put Smith’s time in Kansas City in perspective, I would have said that Smith was the third best quarterback of the modern NFL era behind both Joe Montana and Trent Green. I don’t think that’s a stance that is too different than what a lot of other Chiefs fans think of Smith. You’d be hard-pressed to find another quarterback in the last 30 years that anyone with a right mind would put over him. So I wasn’t surprised that I didn’t find any other quarterbacks in the modern era that did more with the Chiefs. What I was surprised by is that when you really look at their numbers and accomplishments you can make a pretty strong case that Alex Smith was the best Chiefs quarterback of the modern era.

At this point some of you are ready to grab your torches and pitchforks and come after me.

I know, I know, but hear me out before you spark those torches and jump right to the comments to tell me what an idiot I am.

I’ll start by explaining what I did in research of this post. I wanted to compare Alex Smith’s production with that of all the Chiefs quarterbacks of the past 30 years. Why 30 years? Well, its a nice even number. Plus, it’s the exact number of seasons since Todd Blackledge started his last game as a Chief. So it’s not only a nice even number but its the period between the season when Blackledge started his last game and when Patrick Mahomes becomes the full time starter.

I then looked up the career numbers for every quarterback that started at least ten games for the Chiefs during this time period. As I’ve already said, I didn’t find any unexpected quarterbacks that out-performed Smith, but just so you can really get a feel for what the Chiefs have had over the years in quarterback production, let’s start by looking at the numbers of the guys that clearly were not as productive as Alex Smith while in Kansas City.