Washington QB Alex Smith will have a chance to compete for the starting job if healthy

The last time that Washington quarterback Alex Smith was on a football field with his team was nearly two years ago when he had the recently renamed Washington Football Team in first place in the NFC East with a 6-4 record through the first 10 games of the 2018 season. He had been acquired via trade that offseason from the Kansas City Chiefs and signed to a four-year extension worth $94 million with the expectation of being their franchise signal-caller for the foreseeable future.

All the team’s momentum was derailed and Smith’s playing career and life were derailed when he suffered a broken fibula and tibia while getting sacked by Houston Texans defensive lineman JJ Watt in Week 11 on the anniversary of the day that former Washington star quarterback and franchise great Joe Theismann suffered the horrific leg injury that ended his career.

It was a tragic irony that turned into a life-threatening disaster when Smith contracted a severe infection in his injured leg stemming from the multiple surgeries, he underwent to repair it. His recovery and rehab have been well documented, and I highly encourage that football fans everywhere and even no sports fans watch ESPN’s ‘Project 11’ documentary detailed his journey.

His recovery has been nothing short of miraculous and inspiring. Last week his camp of representatives and doctors said that he is medically cleared to resume football activities. On Monday the team placed Smith on the PUP (Physically Unable to Perform) list as an expected precaution in the event that the veteran isn’t quite full go according to their team medical officials since a player can’t go on the list once training camp officially begins.

The move affords both Smith and then team some additional time to make sure that he can perform all of the physical duties necessary to play the quarterback position before activating. Those duties include being able to elude the pass rush, being able to take a hit, take snaps under center and in the shotgun as well being able to conduct multi-step dropbacks.

Determining whether he can take a hit will be difficult to ascertain without live action against another team since all quarterbacks wear distinctly colored non-contact jerseys in training camp and practices during the regular season.

If Smith does pass the physical conducted by Washington’s medical staff, first-year Head Coach Ron Rivera said that he will have a chance to compete for the starting quarterback position under the new regime.

“If that happens, I think this is a guy that becomes part of our equation. That’s the truth of the matter,” Rivera said in a Tuesday press conference, via Nicki Jhabvala of the Washington Post.

Rivera is entering his first year at the helm and has expressed that the competition for QB1 on the depth chart at the most important position in all of sports will be a “pure” one between all healthy candidates.

If cleared, Smith’s top competition in the nation’s capital to become a starter once again will 2019 first-round pick Dwayne Haskins and former undrafted free agent Kyle Allen. The team selected Haskins with the 15th overall pick in last year’s draft out of Ohio State. He started seven games as a rookie, posted a 2-5 record as a start, and while he struggled early on, he showed signs of improvement with the more experience he gained.

Allen was acquired from the Carolina Panthers via trade back in March in exchange for a fifth-round pick in this past April’s draft. He started 12 games for the Panthers in Rivera’s last year there and boasted a 5-7 record as a starter. His 2019 season was like Haskins but in reverse. Allen started off his stint as the starter filling in quite admirably for an injured Cam Newton but his luster quickly wore off as he struggled mightily in the second half of the season.

Haskins is considered the early front runner to win the job and all reports indicate that he has done a lot to improve his body and his mechanics this offseason but since Rivera inherited both he and Smith and brought in Allen as a familiar contingency or a spot starter at best, it might as well be up for grabs since the man in charge of the final decision has no known allegiances to any of them as he attempts to establish a winning culture in the organization that has been dysfunctional for years.

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