Just 21 months ago, Washington Football Team quarterback Alex Smith suffered one of the most devastating leg injuries anyone has ever seen on a football field – one honest equal in type (and circumstance) to the one who ended Washington Quarterback Joe Theismann’s playing career just 33 years earlier.
But unlike Theismann, Smith’s leg was infected. He did not cover a single operation (as Theismann had), but a total of 17 operations documented by a gruesome ESPN special that was released in the spring.
At the end of July, Smith’s own doctors cleared him out to return to the team, which put him on their list of physically unwell. But on Sunday, we learned that doctors on the Washington team had wiped him out to rejoin the active roster before their padded practices began on Monday.
Smith will now have the chance to compete with Dwayne Haskins and Kyle Allen, hoping to end the four-year, $ 94 million contract he signed in 2017, the same way he started it: as the starting quarterback of the team.
Besides Smith’s own family, no one is happier for him than two of his biggest fans: Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Kansas and quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
‘How great is that? I’m so happy for him, ”Reid told reporters on Sunday after the third training session of the training camp team. ‘He’s dirty tough. He loves the game; he did not want it to end like it ended with the leg. That he is back. We all saw the “E: 60” special and the rehab he went through – that day-in and day-out grinding of rehab. I am very, very happy for him. I’m also happy for the Washington team. ”
Upon his arrival in Kansas City in 2013, Smith was one of the key pieces that Reid added to resist the fortunes of a team that in 2012 was the worst of the NFL, taking it to the playoffs in four of the next five seasons. In 2017 – his final year in Kansas City – Smith also played a key role in taking care of his replacement: the phenomenal Mahomes, who was named league MVP in his first season – and Super Bowl MVP in his second, leading the Chiefs after their first championship in 50 years.
“It’s a great thing,” Mahomes said on Sunday. ‘I begged Alex for the season – before the training camp started. Him simply being there and being removed by his doctors can be removed – and now being removed by the Washington doctors – that he is there and can perform shows the horror he has. He’s someone who’s helped me a ton in my career – and he has always persevered. I expect him to to keep continuing as his career continues. ”
No one knows where Smith’s career will now lead. But the man who suffered the same injury nearly 35 years ago thinks Smith has already won one award tight.
“He went through a lot more than I had to go through,” Joe Theismann told ESPN. “For me, it was a matter of healing the legs and then trying to do certain things that are necessary from the quarterback position. Alex arrived within 24 hours after losing his leg. I did not come up with complications; he dealt with an enormous number of complications. It was not just healing from a broken leg. The mountain he had to climb is so much bigger.
“Whatever happens, he has already won the award for comeback player of the year.”
