Washington Football Team quarterback Alex Smith took aim at the franchise in an interview this week, saying the team “didn’t want me” after he miraculously recovered from a serious leg injury, and hesitated to give him a “fair” shake “. once Smith made it back to the active squad. When Dwayne Haskins struggled it early on and Kyle Allen got injured, Smith finally returned to the field on October 11 against the Los Angeles Rams and kept the starting place until he sustained a calf injury towards the end of the regular season. .
Smith completed 66.7 percent of his passes for 1,582 yards, six touchdowns and eight interceptions in eight games played in 2020, but went an impressive 5-1 as a starter. Washington finished with a 7-9 record, winning its first NFC East title since 2015 in large part thanks to Smith, who was named the 2020 NFL Comeback Player of the Year. Obviously, it has been a tough few years for Smith, but why should he? verbally assault his current team? This is something that 106.7 The Fan’s Grant Paulsen wanted to discover, and by talking to various people in and around the Washington Football Team, he came up with two primary cases that exacerbated Smith’s frustration.
An example that reportedly rubbed Smith’s camp the wrong way took place prior to Washington’s pivotal game in Week 17 against the Philadelphia Eagles. The winner of this game would claim the NFC East and secure a playoff spot, and Smith’s 4-1 record was a major reason Washington was in this favorable spot. A reporter pitched Washington head coach Ron Rivera to what appeared to be a softball question, and asked Rivera if Washington would be in the position they were without Smith. Rather than praise his best quarterback, Rivera took it a different way.
“Well, if we had a healthy Kyle Allen, I think we could have done it. Really,” Rivera said through The Team 980. “I think we can have that. And a lot of the reason is because “Kyle, he’s a lot like Alex in terms of his capabilities. He’s got the same kind of arm. He makes good decisions like Alex. He’s got good footwork. I think we could have done that. I do.”
The other instance that reportedly upset Smith did not start in Washington’s playoff game. While Smith started and won the crucial game in Philly, he was clearly bothered by the calf injury he sustained a few weeks earlier. In the run-up to Washington’s Super Wild-Card Weekend game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, reports surfaced that Smith may be inactive, and sure enough, it was Taylor Heinicke who got the start. Heinicke turned his impressive performance in the loss of 31-23 into a two-year extension with Washington, but the franchise is reportedly not done adding under the middle.
Washington could save nearly $ 15 million by releasing Smith off-season, and it’s fair to speculate he knows something we don’t know about his immediate future.