Washington QB Alex Smith has had a long road since injuring his leg against the Houston Texans back in 2018. The now 36-year-old father of two had to endure 17 separate surgeries and a painstaking process that would humble even the most headstrong and confident. Smith has fought at every step and was ultimately activated Sunday from the franchise’s physically unable to perform (PUP) list.
He will now start practicing with the rest of his teammates and openly competing with the other quarterbacks on the roster for the starting role.
The news came late Saturday night and opened up the idea that Smith will now compete for the starting role with second-year signal-caller Dwayne Haskins and the guy who started for Ron Rivera last season, Kyle Allen. While, at this point, we really don’t know what to expect yet in terms of the offense under new coordinator Scott Turner, we do know Haskins is currently in the driver’s seat in terms of who will run it.
Redskins coach Ron Rivera was asked about diving up reps in practice earlier this week. This was his response: “Well, the biggest thing we’ve got to do is not make sure we’re divvying up the reps as evenly as possible, but we divvy up who they work against. This could be a very interesting challenge for us because of QB Alex Smith. If Alex is healthy and continues to get healthy and we do activate him, he’s going to be in the throes of this competition. It’s going to unfold very nicely as a football team for us because competition is only going to make you better. It’s going to push the young guys as well. I just feel really good about what we’re going to be doing as we start going forward. It’ll be a very challenging situation to make sure everybody’s reps are equitable, and their competition is the same.”
If the day comes when a completely healthy 24-year-old Haskins loses the starting role to a guy who almost died because of his leg injury, it will be a strange day indeed and would likely damage Haskins mentally as a signal-caller. On the other hand, don’t count Alex out by any means…I personally believe he’d be better suited as a mentor/QB coach/backup plan. But do you think he’s going to just give up and stop there? Highly doubtful.
Whatever happens after this point, it’s incredible that this man was able to work his way anywhere near a football field.
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