How Alex Smith’s roller coaster 49ers career shaped one of the best comeback stories

Sometimes in sports a true story is greater than fiction.

Submit Alex Smith’s movie script to a Hollywood producer and you would get laughed at. A quarterback coming back from a life-threatening leg injury? One that required 17 surgeries? After playing for a team that struggled to create any stability around him, and traded him once he turned the corner and developed into a good player all those years later?

And one of the final scenes is him taking on his former team after his career was assumed over? Come on.

It’s too easy. Too cliche. A story about that kind of resiliency is too hard to believe, too patronizing to the audience. There has to be some level of believability for a fictional story to keep people engaged.

That’s what’s so remarkable about Smith and his comeback.

It’s all true. You can’t make it up because it would be too self-serving to the writer and the audience wouldn’t take it seriously. It’s better than fiction.

Smith comes all the way back to face 49ers

When Smith leads the Washington Football Team to play the 49ers on Sunday, it will be one of the final acts of his remarkable journey.

Unfortunately, from a storytelling perspective, Smith won’t be able to face his former team at Candlestick Park, where he toiled in mediocrity and overcame his shortcomings for an entire fan base to witness. With the game in Arizona, he won’t even get to play in front of 49ers fans in the Bay Area, who would have likely given him a huge ovation.

He won’t be able to recreate his epic touchdown run against the Saints in the 2012 playoffs, his triumph proving he could win a big game after he was constantly booed by fans that chanted “We want Carr,” for backup David Carr, at the height of Smith’s struggles.

“It was hard. Really hard. I don’t wish that on anybody,” Smith said in a conference call with Bay Area reporters this week.

Smith was asked about how his time with the 49ers shaped him. And instead of lamenting about the circumstances — seven offensive coordinators, three head coaches, so few weapons, an organization in a constant identity crisis — Smith said his time with San Francisco hardened him and gave him the tools to overcome his devastating injury that nearly cost him his life, his right leg, let alone his playing career.

Smith went from being the ire of the fan base, the failed first-overall pick in 2005, to one of the most efficient quarterbacks in football in 2011, when he orchestrated the epic win over the Saints in Jim Harbaugh’s first season as coach, before getting replaced by Colin Kaepernick midway through the 2012 season where San Francisco eventually went to the Super Bowl.

“I learned so much, I think, that it helped me not just with football but with my life,” Smith said. “I think a lot of that, the mindset and attitude you go into that with, I really learned a lot from that. And then, as well as those last couple years, for sure, when we finally got it going and turned around, and no doubt that confidence I think that really started there is what I took with me as well. That really helped me go into the next part of my career. Certainly after the trade (to Kansas City) and I think if it wasn’t for those couple years, all of us kind of digging ourselves out of it, my myself included, really helped me lead into that next kind of phase.”

Moving on from the 49ers

Smith’s next phase cemented what kind of positive influence he could be on those around him. He became the Chiefs’ starter for five seasons, where he went 50-26 under Andy Reid, and never had a season below .500. And just like in San Francisco, Smith was replaced by a strong-armed youngster after his best season with the team.

Smith in 2017 threw for 4,042 yards in 15 games with 26 touchdowns and just five interceptions, only to be benched for a hotshot rookie named Patrick Mahomes in the season finale after the team traded up for him the previous spring.

What’s happened to Mahomes since, of course, is history. Mahomes in many ways is Smith’s antithesis. He has arguably the best physical skills the sport has seen, with a rocket arm, an ability to throw from any angle and athleticism that can take advantage of a defensive lapse.

Smith was never that player. He never had the arm strength to threaten defenses deep. He was always a check-down artist who relied on efficiency. It was maddening to fans, at times, while coaches respected his ability to get the ball out quickly, to the right player, while rarely turning it over.

Mahomes’ skill set, supported by Smith’s veteran savvy, led to Mahomes developing into one of the greatest quarterbacks of his generation.

“Not everybody does it like Alex. That’s the thing,” Reid said before the 49ers took on the Chiefs and Mahomes in 2018, before Mahomes won the MVP award and his Super Bowl against San Francisco to cap the 2019 campaign.

“Not everybody does it as thorough, goes about their job as thorough as Alex does,” Reid continued. “And so (Mahomes) wasn’t afraid to learn from Alex. As a coach, listen, we could tell you to do this and that, but to have a guy like that be able to come in and be able to follow somebody that does it perfect, in preparation, then that’s something special.”

Smith this week offered advice to young quarterbacks.

“Be confident in who you are and be comfortable in your own skin and go out there and own that,” he said. “I think that was my biggest problem, certainly in my first few years, is really trying to have everybody like me. I want to prove to everybody, all of that. It’s just so unrealistic and not practical, it’s never going to happen and it’s not a good way to live life or play football.”

Leaving Mahomes for Washington

Mahomes turned out to be so special there was little use in keeping Smith around. Washington needed stability at quarterback after allowing Kirk Cousins to leave in free agency on a record contract with the Minnesota Vikings. So Washington traded for Smith and he suffered his gruesome injury in November of 2018. It was a compound fracture to his right tibia and fibula, which included bone protruding from his skin.

There were constant infections, which led to the 17 surgeries, before Smith was cleared for football over the summer.

There was talk of Smith having the leg amputated. Smith wound up going to the Center for the Intrepid, a military treatment center in San Antonio, where he met soldiers who suffered injuries that cost them their limbs. Smith met with doctors there who eventually said his bone was strong enough for him to play football again.

“One of the doctors said, ‘heck, if he was a soldier, we’d clear him for combat,’” Washington coach Ron Rivera said. “That’s how well he’s done, and that’s how far he’s progressed.”

Smith regained the starting role in October after Kyle Allen left the game with an injury. Since then, Smith’s jumpstarted Washington’s season. He’s won three straight games, including a victory over the previously undefeated Pittsburgh Steelers and one of the league’s most ferocious defenses last week. Washington is 5-7, tied for the lead of the putrid NFC East following a 1-5 start, leaving Smith a chance at the playoffs after it was assumed he would never play again.

It’s all made Smith a shoe-in for the Comeback Player of the Year Award, and one that deserves to be atop the list of any comeback story in sports.

“(I have) as much respect as you can have for anyone,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said when asked about Smith this week. “For him to go through what he went through and to still want to come back, it’s definitely not a money thing. The guy does alright in that area.

“It’s not something he had to do. It shows why he has been successful in everything he’s done. Showed why he had a great college career, showed why he was a top pick in the draft, it showed why he’s helped out three different teams now and for him to come back and just want to come back after going through that, it shows there’s a lot of special things inside that guy.”

Said Rivera: “I admire who he is. I really do. Not only did he want to come back and play, but it wasn’t just one of those things to show people. I think it was because he really truly loved the game, I think that’s a big reason why he did what he did.”

Smith said he and his wife, Liz, and their three children are planning to move back to the Bay Area once his playing career is over. That might come as soon as this offseason for the 36-year-old.

Shanahan might be wise to see if Smith would like a role on his staff, perhaps as a quarterback coach to help develop 49ers signal-callers in the way he nudged Mahomes to evolve into a star.

No matter how Smith’s story ends, it’s one that’s been too good to make up.