Where does Alex Smith rank among the Kansas City Chiefs best quarterbacks ever?
Alright, let’s get down to it. Joe Montana is one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. Trent Green is beloved by Chiefs nation and quarterbacked the Chiefs during a period of a lot of offensive production under head coach Dick Vermeil. So there’s no way Alex Smith can make a case for having a better Chiefs career, right? Let’s see what the numbers say.
Joe Montana – 1993-1994, 25 starts, 17-8 record (68% winning percentage)
2 playoff appearances, 2-2 playoff record
60.7% completion percentage, 85.0 quarterback rating
5,427 yards, 6.9 yards per attempt, 217.1 yards per game
29 touchdowns, 16 interceptions
Trent Green – 2001-2006, 88 starts, 48-40 record (54.5% winning percentage)
2 playoff appearances, 0-2 playoff record
61.9% completion percentage, 87.3 quarterback rating
21,459 yards, 7.7 yards per attempt, 243.9 yards per game
118 touchdowns, 85 interceptions
Alex Smith – 2013-2017, 76 starts, 50-26 record (65.8% winning percentage)
4 playoff appearances, 1-4 playoff record
65.1% completion percentage, 94.8 quarterback rating
17,608 yards, 7.2 yards per attempt, 231.7 yards per game
102 touchdowns, 33 interceptions
This is where I was really surprised. If I’m being honest, I think my memories of the Trent Green era inflated his accomplishments a little. I was expecting his numbers to be clearly more productive than Smith and thought their winning percentages would be closer.
Let me put it this way, if I had asked you how Smith’s touchdowns per game started numbers would look compared to Montana and Green, I would have guessed he would have been in third place. Here are the exact numbers.
Montana: 1.160 touchdown passes per start
Green: 1.341 touchdown passes per start
Smith: 1.342 touchdown passes per start
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So Alex Smith (by .001 touchdowns per start) actually averaged more touchdowns per start than both Montana and Green. Plus, his interception numbers are drastically lower than either of the other two. Smith’s completion percentage and quarterback rating are clearly the best of the three with his yards per attempt and per game being more than Montana but less than Green. Alex Smith led the Chiefs to four playoff appearances and two AFC West titles while both Montana and Green only had two playoff appearances and one AFC West title each.
Perhaps the biggest knock on Smith is that he hasn’t gotten it done in the playoffs. However, we Chiefs fans don’t use that against Trent Green for some reason. For all the love Green has from Chiefs fans, Alex Smith has a playoff win and Green doesn’t.
“Yeah, but Lyle, Trent lost the ‘no punt game’, as in his offense never had to punt! That playoff loss isn’t on him!”
Ok, both Trent Green and Alex Smith had heartbreaking loses to the Indianapolis Colts in the playoffs. Green had the “no punt game” and Smith had the “Andrew Luck fumble touchdown” game. Let’s compare their stats in those two games.
Green: 18-30 (60.0%), 212 yards (7.1 YPA), 1 TD, 0 INTs, 31 points scored
Smith: 30-46 (65.2%), 378 yards (8.2 YPA), 4 TDs, 0 INTs, 44 points scored
So we’re going to give Green a pass and say his defense let him down, but not Smith? I don’t think so. So if you can’t use Smith’s playoff loses against him in comparing him and Green then what argument for Green is there? He threw for more yards and yards per attempt? Ok….
So if I said you could choose between two quarterbacks:
A. Higher completion percentage, significantly better TD to INT ratio, 10% higher winning percentage, twice as many playoff appearances and division titles, one playoff win
B. More yards per attempt and yards per game
Is anyone actually going to argue that “B” had the better Chiefs career? Why, because he’s more personable? Because he wasn’t as frustrating to watch at times? The numbers don’t lie. Maybe Trent Green took risks when Alex Smith played it safe but it didn’t get Green anywhere. It didn’t help him win more games or go farther in the playoffs. In fact, the numbers clearly show he did both worse than Alex Smith did. Period.
So that just leaves us with Joe Montana standing between Alex Smith and the legacy of being the best Chiefs quarterback of the modern NFL era. While I feel like the numbers clearly show Smith to have had a better Chiefs career than Green, it’s not so clear between Montana and Smith. First of all, Montana only played in Kansas City for two seasons. It feels a little weird to say the best Chiefs quarterback of the past 30 years was a guy that only played two seasons for the team.
What Montana has going for him is that his results while he was here slightly edge out Smith. Montana’s winning percentage is slightly higher and in just two seasons he put up two playoff wins compared to just one for Smith in five seasons. Plus, Montana’s two playoff wins came in the same season where he advanced the Chiefs to the AFC Championship Game, something Smith didn’t do.
So the question is, does Montana making it one round farther in the playoffs give him the edge over Smith who was a Chief for three more seasons than Montana and had two more playoff appearances, one more division title, more touchdowns per game, less interceptions per game, more yards per game, and a higher completion percentage?
I honestly don’t think there is a wrong answer here. I personally still think of Montana as short term rental as opposed to a true Kansas City quarterback. That’s just me. I don’t expect you to feel the same way. So for me, I’m going to say I think Alex Smith has had the best career of any Chiefs quarterback since Len Dawson. However, if you say that Joe Montana had a better career as a Chief because he got them one step closer to a Super Bowl, I can respect that. However, if you’re going to come at me with Trent Green being better than Smith just because you “like him more” then I don’t think I can get on board with that.
So what do you think Chiefs fans? After seeing the numbers do you agree that Alex Smith at least has a claim to being the best Chiefs quarterback of the modern NFL era? Were you as surprised by how Smith’s numbers held up against Joe Montana and Trent Green as I was? Regardless of where you stand I think we can all agree that Alex Smith deserves a tip of the cap as his era in Kansas City comes to an end. He gave us five years of quality play, steady leadership, and lots of wins. Ultimately, he fell short of the post season success that we all wanted. However, so has every quarterback to play in Kansas City since Len Dawson. That shouldn’t keep him from being seen as one of the greats at the position for the Chiefs. Now we just hope that Patrick Mahomes is all that we hope he will be and that 20 years from now his Super Bowl wins make him the new clear cut winner of this debate.
As always, thanks for reading and GO CHIEFS!!!!