{"id":115565,"date":"2025-09-03T01:27:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T01:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/115565\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T01:27:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T01:27:09","slug":"former-top-pick-alex-smith-says-some-nfl-teams-dont-have-a-clue-what-theyre-doing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/115565\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Top Pick Alex Smith Says Some NFL Teams ‘Don’t Have a Clue What They’re Doing’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex Smith, who played 16 NFL seasons following his selection at the top of the 2005 draft, criticized how teams draft and develop young quarterbacks in a recent conversation with The Athletic’s Zak Keefer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Teams would give anything to get the right guy,” Smith told Keefer. “The problem is, some of them don’t have a clue what they’re doing.”<\/p>\n

Smith went on to compliment an assessment from Minnesota Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell, who said<\/a> in an appearance on the Rich Eisen Show last September that he felt “organizations fail young quarterbacks before young quarterbacks fail organizations.”<\/p>\n

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard it put so well. Certainly not from an active head coach,” Smith told Keefer.<\/p>\n

O’Connell meanwhile backed up his comments to Eisen by reiterating to Keefer that he believes organizations move on too quickly from signal calling prospects.<\/p>\n

“In what world do you go from wearing a life vest and learning how to swim to being thrown in the deep end in the middle of a 200-meter freestyle against Michael Phelps?” O’Connell asked Keefer. <\/p>\n

“We decide in this league very quickly whether a guy can or can’t play quarterback like it’s a simple yes or no: This is the guy or this isn’t the guy; let’s either have a parade in the streets or let’s move on and try and find another one.”<\/p>\n

Smith and O’Connell’s comments to Keefer come amid struggles from multiple young quarterbacks who went starting from college into starting roles, particularly those selected toward the top of the 2023 draft.<\/p>\n

No. 4 selection Anthony Richardson has already lost his starting job to Daniel Jones, another former high draft pick (No. 6 in the 2019 draft) who lost his starting job last season with the New York Giants.<\/p>\n

Top pick Bryce Young meanwhile leads the Carolina Panthers depth chart heading into Week 1, but was benched last season and once more has backup Andy Dalton waiting in the wings to take over if he struggles.<\/p>\n

Smith told Keefer that his struggles early in his career came from the San Francisco 49ers not wanting him to work with the spread offense that led to his success under Urban Meyer at Utah. He went on to compliment Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid for being able to “adapt” his offense to whichever starting quarterback he had in his system.<\/p>\n

Panthers head coach Dave Canales may need to be similarly adaptable to building his offense around Young this season in order to avoid any further missteps in Young’s development.<\/p>\n

Players and coaches like Smith and O’Connell may meanwhile be hoping the recent struggles of top NFL draft picks like Young will eventually lead to a league-wide reevaluation of how teams manage quarterbacks’ transition from college to the pros.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Smith, who played 16 NFL seasons following his selection at the top of the 2005 draft, criticized…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":["post-115565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}