{"id":19435,"date":"2025-05-03T02:02:04","date_gmt":"2025-05-03T02:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/19435\/"},"modified":"2025-05-03T02:02:04","modified_gmt":"2025-05-03T02:02:04","slug":"alex-smith-says-chiefs-reaping-rewards-of-patrick-mahomes-redshirt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/19435\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Smith says Chiefs \u2018reaping rewards\u2019 of Patrick Mahomes\u2019 redshirt"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the years since Kansas City Chiefs<\/a> quarterback Patrick Mahomes became the team\u2019s starter, it has become fashionable in some NFL circles to think that other quarterbacks will soon surpass him \u2014 if they haven\u2019t already.<\/p>\n

But his former teammate Alex Smith doesn\u2019t travel in those circles. As far as he is concerned, Mahomes is still the league\u2019s top dog in one critical category \u2014 and perhaps not the one you might think.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s the best quarterback in the NFL at the line of scrimmage \u2014 when you talk about making protection adjustments [and] getting to the right play,\u201d Smith said in an interview on \u201cThe Rich Eisen Show\u201d that aired on Thursday<\/a>. \u201cBut the problem is [that] he\u2019s so good at [improvising] that I think it gets the attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, he told Eisen that while Mahomes was a rookie backup during Smith\u2019s final season with the Chiefs in 2017, it wasn\u2019t immediately apparent that the former Texas Tech gunslinger was ready to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard when you\u2019re a backup quarterback,\u201d explained Smith. \u201cYou\u2019re on the scout team, [so] you don\u2019t get a lot of reps to shine. As quarterbacks in practice, we wear this bright yellow jersey; you\u2019re kind of untouchable. [But] there was no thing early on that he did that made you think, \u2018Oh, he\u2019s got it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

But as time went on \u2014 especially during Mahomes\u2019 first start against the Denver Broncos<\/a> in the season\u2019s final game \u2014 it became obvious to Smith that his own days with the Chiefs were numbered. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere were throws that he made on the practice field,\u201d he recalled, \u201cand you [started] to see how fast he was processing. It\u2019s certainly [true] that [in the] last game you referenced, [to go] out there in an NFL game and play the way he did, I think everybody that was there that day knew that he was ready. Certainly for me, [I] knew the writing was on the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Smith respects Mahomes\u2019 talent, he also thinks Kansas City\u2019s decision to give Mahomes a redshirt season \u2014 something the San Francisco 49ers<\/a> chose not to do when Smith joined the team as the draft\u2019s first overall pick in 2005 \u2014 has played a big part in the Chiefs\u2019 subsequent success.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the ability to have some freedom to develop and not play right away [was a factor],\u201d he said. \u201cCertainly [Mahomes could] have, of course. But I think in Kansas City, they\u2019re reaping the rewards of that kind of patience.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the years since Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes became the team\u2019s starter, it has become fashionable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2063],"tags":[6261,921,346,7,29,118,110,9623,922,2438,2437,859,6,152,858,151,9620,9622,9621,3804,2383],"class_list":{"0":"post-19435","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kansas-city-chiefs","8":"tag-alex","9":"tag-arrowhead","10":"tag-chiefs","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-front-page","13":"tag-kansas-city","14":"tag-kansas-city-chiefs","15":"tag-kansas-city-chiefs-history","16":"tag-kansas-city-chiefs-news","17":"tag-kansascity","18":"tag-kansascitychiefs","19":"tag-mahomes","20":"tag-nfl","21":"tag-of","22":"tag-patrick","23":"tag-pride","24":"tag-reaping","25":"tag-redshirt","26":"tag-rewards","27":"tag-says","28":"tag-smith"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114441443353971968","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}