The 2026 NFL Draft starts tonight, and while we don’t watch it on TV, we will read about it later. Today on NFL Thursday, we’re going to revisit the No. 1 overall pick from 2005: quarterback Alex Smith. At the time of his selection, our family still had San Francisco 49ers season tickets, continuously from the early days of Candlestick Park. We always liked Smith, and eventually when we started covering the NFL (journalistically), it was one of those challenges to step back from the subjective to write objectively.

Smith also came up last week in this space as we examined the career of Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. The two played together in Kansas City and had lots of success; in fact, we’d argue that Kelce owes a lot of his career success to his partnership with Smith, a smart veteran who is underrated simply because he was the No. 1 overall pick and never won a Super Bowl—despite a postseason QB rating (97.4) that puts him in the Top 10 all time, way ahead of cheatin’ Tom Brady (89.8).

[So, if the dishonest Brady is the alleged “GOAT”? We suspect that makes Smith something better, eh? Logical reasoning.]

However, that’s just one sabermetric number. Smith was burdened with excessive coaching changes and injuries in his first six NFL seasons (2005-2010), spent with the 49ers. There is a clear demarcation line in his statistical profile at that point, illustrated by his record as a starting QB through 2010 and from 2011 onward to his retirement after the 2020 season. In his first half dozen years with a constantly rebuilding S.F. squad, Smith posted a 18-31 record. From then on, he was 81-36-1 as a starter. That’s nuts!

But it wasn’t just the talent around him that caused the sharp shift from mediocrity to success. It was coaching stability—even though Jim Harbaugh prematurely ran Smith out of town, in error, with the 49ers, he also did give Smith initial grounded support—and game-awareness maturity, as Smith always was touted for his intelligence. Smith finally thrived in Kansas City as he always should have, with Andy Reid in his corner. And Reid is ten times the coach Harbaugh was, when it comes to this situational study.

Smith went from a 79.1 QB rating with the 49ers to a 94.8 mark with the Chiefs, and one easily could argue successfully that the S.F. roster was more talented in his final two years with the team than the K.C. roster was when he joined the team before the 2013 season, since Reid was rebuilding the Chiefs as we discussed last week in the Kelce piece. Ironically, that all-time Top 10 QB rating in the postseason only translated to a 2-5 record, which tells you a lot about what it takes to win in the playoffs: a full roster.

Take that 2013 postseason game when Kansas City lost 45-44 to the Indianapolis Colts: Smith posted a 119.7 QB rating in that game, and his defense was so bad, he “lost” the game. In the 2011 playoffs with the 49ers, he put up a 101.0 QB rating in two games, but special-teams blunders cost S.F. the chance to go to the Super Bowl. Smith got a bad rap for these situations, even though his individual play was outstanding. And then he was displaced as the Chiefs starting QB by some kid named Mahomes.

It’s easy to see how overlooked Smith has been, generally speaking, but he was a very successful NFL quarterback nonetheless. After leaving the Kansas City Chiefs, he spent his final three seasons with the Washington Redskins/Football Team, posting an 11-5 record there from 2018-2020, despite missing the entire 2019 season after an ugly injury. And that perhaps is his most troublesome label: injury prone. He was an age-21 rookie in 2005, and maybe his body never matured enough to endure the game.

Even with his rough career beginnings, Smith ranks 45th all time in regular-season QB rating (86.9). His 99 regular-season career wins reflect 14 seasons in a 16-year span of consistent starting, and his postseason brilliance is clear. Any QB who actually improves their QB rating from the regular-season to the postseason is an impressive one, in truth. Many players wilt in the spotlight of the playoffs, facing the best of the best. Smith rose to the occasion on multiple occasions, giving us highlight reels.

All in all, Smith did pretty well, and he never should be looked at as a “bust” from the overall No. 1 pick slot. We have to admit, we still have his original jersey from that 2005 season that we bought; we wore it to two games at Levi’s Stadium during the 2023 season—including the NFC Championship Game against the Detroit Lions in January 2024. Subjectively, he always will be a favorite of ours, and objectively, he was a much better NFL QB than most people will remember him to be. Circumstances, eh?