- Hey GQ, I'm Alex Smith
and I'm going undercover on the internet.
This is "Actually Me".
[upbeat music]
Okay, let's check Twitter.
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@KSeaboldt how much if any credit
for the Chiefs success goes to Alex Smith
for his professionalism and mentorship
during Patrick Mahomes's first year?
Well, I would probably say most,
if not all the credit probably deserves to go to me.
No, honestly, I hear some of this talk,
and it's really flattering.
You know, my time there in KC
was really special to me and still is.
But I'm so happy for what these guys are doing,
I wish I'd taught Pat how to throw sidearm across the field
while backpedaling, you know, but I didn't.
I was an early pick in my career.
I remember how hard it was and I played right away
and it was really difficult and I took my lumps.
And you have no choice in where you go,
so when Pat got drafted,
I mean, it's not like he chose the situation.
So for me, I think also to be a good teammate,
even when it's not necessarily convenient for you
was important to me
and also to help out another young quarterback,
I felt like I'd been there,
so it was easier for me to relate
to some of the things that he may be going through.
Let's see some YouTube comments.
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Football team is the best name ever.
Even if you are sober, you sound like a drunk
when you scream football team.
Well, it's better to sound like a drunk than a racist.
I don't know where to go with this one, posted.
Was there ever any doubt that Alex Smith
would win AP Comeback Player of the Year?
Well, apparently there's one person that didn't vote for me.
So I guess it wasn't that for sure.
Yeah, you never totally know,
I guess how people feel that are in your circle
or around it.
So I didn't totally know how people thought
of this out there, you know in the journey
and trying to come back.
And then there were obviously a few stages of the comeback
from even just making the team and then playing at first
and then obviously to be able to be a starter,
you know obviously a tremendous honor
and you know anytime in a team sport,
you get this kind of recognition,
it's obviously a pretty special.
And it says a lot about the people around me,
all my teammates, and certainly a lot of people
that help me off the field as well.
Let's see what's on Wikipedia.
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During a game against the Houston Texans
on November 18th, 2018, Smith suffered a spiral
and compound fracture to his tibia and fibula
in his right leg when he was sacked
by Kareem Jackson and J.J. Watt.
This is completely factual and awesome reliving it.
Thanks a lot J.J., everybody says, J.J. is such a nice guy.
The crazy thing about this play is I really felt
like it was a pretty innocent play
and sack by NFL standards.
You know it was one of those that I felt
like I was kind of conceding the sack
and just trying to protect the football
and you know weirdly enough getting hit
by J.J. on the front and Kareem on the side,
it just obviously it was enough that that my leg gave out.
I remember a really funny feeling in my leg,
it wasn't like I knew it was broken immediately.
It went fuzzy, that's what it felt like.
And then really it was the visual when I looked down
and could see that my leg,
obviously wasn't straight anymore,
that told me that I'd broken it.
Following the initial surgery,
Smith developed life-threatening necrotizing fasciitis
that resulted in sepsis,
which required him to undergo 17 surgeries,
including eight debridements across four hospital stays
over a period of nine months.
Say that fast five times, again, all factual.
Luckily I was unconscious for a majority of these surgeries.
It was not fun,
I was in the hospital for about a month for the initial stay
and then shorter stays thereafter luckily.
Unfortunately, my wife and family probably endured
the most of this as I was kind of out of it.
I mean, I know this now
but I never would have understood
what any of this meant prior to my injury.
So for those of you out there,
necrotizing fasciitis is commonly known
as flesh eating bacteria.
So basically this bug grew in my leg
that it was eating and killing the flesh in my leg.
And then the doctors with the debris movements
that's essentially they're cutting out the infection.
So they had to cut out all the tissues,
and they kept doing it, they had to go
in eight different times 'cause it kept spreading
and spreading finally got it under control
which was then obviously I was left
with what was left in my leg.
As a part of his recovery process,
he wore an external fixation device for nearly a year.
External fixation devices a really nice way of saying,
they bolted a metal cage to my leg
because of all the surgeries
and the skin grafts and pretty complex limb salvage.
You're not allowed to have a cast
or any kind of boot to hold my bone in place.
So the only other alternative is to bolt a metal halo
into my bone, pretty gnarly looking when you see it on.
You can't get pants on, shorts on, underwear on
over this thing 'cause it's really big.
So basically my wife was nice enough to go get
like a few pairs of underwear shorts
and some pants altered for me where they could zip up
or button up on the side,
so I could just kinda put them on like basketball warmups,
but that's basically all I wore for those 10 months,
where some version of those underwear shorts or pants.
Alex Smith mentored three quarterbacks
that eventually went to a Super Bowl.
Patrick Mahomes, Colin Kaepernick, and Nick Foles.
I wish I got to play in the Super Bowl.
Always the bridesmaid, never the bride, I guess.
Again, an honor to somehow people think I deserve any kind
of credit with these three guys,
but again, flattering.
You might not believe it, but it's actually me.
Are we sure Mahomes becomes who he is
as quickly if he doesn't sit?
Didn't look nearly as good in preseason
or his loan game his rookie year,
has said many times sitting behind Alex Smith led him
to better recognizing defensive schemes.
There's no one size fits all approach in my opinion.
I still couldn't break him of his ketchup habit,
apparently either.
Again, this is really flattering,
you know, maybe if I was a little better
at reading the situation
I could have seen that I was gonna get traded that year.
To even say I have a small sliver
of the Chiefs' and Pat's trajectory is flattering.
Again, the left-handed passes,
I wish I had been the one taking those notes
while we were together.
Replied, let's check out Reddit.
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You know what is amazing?
The fact that he is taking risks
unlike I've seen in San Fran or KC,
it's almost as if after the surgery he feels
as though there's nothing to lose
and it is wonderful to watch.
I could lose my other leg.
No kidding, here it is, the game manager checkdown thing.
I don't know,
I'm just playing out there.
I'm trying to make the right reads to help our team score.
If it calls for throwing it down the field
I try to do that.
And when it's about checking it down, I try to do that too.
Well, I think from the moment,
especially for my first start this last year,
all week, it was amazing.
I felt like a rookie driving into work every day,
I had these like amazing butterflies all week,
leading up to that game that I never thought would happen.
I just kept telling myself that this could be my only start.
This could be it, I may never get another one.
It was amazing to live like that
that whole week and play like that,
that just there is no tomorrow,
nothing's guaranteed beyond this.
I really wish I could go back to maybe my younger self,
and you know instill that.
And I think it's something
that we can all hopefully live like,
and certainly for me play like, just being in the moment,
making the most of it,
and you're not taking anything for granted.
Next, in 2007, Smith founded the Alex Smith Foundation
and the Alex Smith Guardian Scholars Program,
which helps send foster teens to college.
This is true.
Apparently, we couldn't come up with any better names
than just putting Alex Smith on the front of everything.
This is still one of my passions, still rolling today
is helping foster kids finish high school and college.
I didn't grow up in a foster kid,
I grew up basically the total opposite.
Still have a ton of support to this day from my family.
And I could not imagine trying to do that alone.
I was just trying to help kids,
it really kind of came to my attention in 2007
God, I was still in my early 20s
and meeting some of these kids that were homeless,
trying to finish school completely on their own.
And I just remember how daunting that seemed to me
at the time and how unfair,
just trying to help the kids out who were obviously born
into a completely different situation
through no fault of their own.
You may not believe it, but it's actually me,
Alex Smith, the former Chiefs QB Alex Smith,
just agreed with me backstage in an interview
that Brady is the GOAT.
So there you go.
Well, Briar, I told you so.
It's tough to argue with this one.
I mean, he's got more championships
than every franchise there is.
Can we all agree that it should be two-hand touch rules
when it comes to Alex Smith?
I'm always so nervous watching him play,
can't even imagine how his wife and family feel.
I don't disagree with this.
If someone could tell Aaron Donald this,
that would be awesome.
When I got home after the first game
that I played in that I got tackled,
my wife and family were celebrating
and really made it a big deal for me,
kind of the milestone.
And they seem so happy.
And then I saw some pictures of their faces
during the game as I was getting tackled
and clearly, a very different emotion for my wife and kids.
Wow, Alex Smith's wife made a replica
of the Lombardi trophy out of his leg brace.
They don't make them like that anymore. #project 11.
You're right, Chris,
it is a really strong brace.
Elizabeth's pretty good too.
You know I'm not a big, like memorabilia guy.
We don't have anything, there's no like den.
So this is the only thing
from my career that really sits out.
Deservedly, it's the coolest present I've ever got.
You know, it was something that I wore that,
like I said, it was life-changing and a pain
to live with for so long.
But certainly I think to flip it
and change it into something like that,
I really I think is so cool
and really signifies the journey.
If Alex Smith retires this offseason Kyle Shanahan needs
to make him QB Coach, obviously still loves the game
but wants to move back to the Bay.
He got peak Kaepernick ready,
Mahomes mentally ready,
and now Heinecke, Haskins question Mark,
you can lead a horse to water
but you can't make them drink.
Man, I guess I can't be an OSI,
I gotta be a quarterback coach.
I am planning on moving back to the Bay eventually,
but I don't know, I think my wife would kill me
if I decided to coach.
She sacrificed enough during my playing career,
being away I think if I decided to continue on,
even more so as a coach,
I don't think that would be good.
LAURA, in all caps, ask him if he's going
or wants to play next year?
I think this is about the 60-minutes.
And Mark Workman, her name is Norah.
So if you were screaming, she might've heard you
if you called her by her real name.
I had so much fun playing this last year.
I felt like my leg and my body
with the time off and the injury responded so well.
And so for me, I feel like it only fueled the fire for me
to kind of continue to see where I can go
on this journey back.
I still feel like I have more to do
and more to gain.
So we'll see again, I really need to sit down,
my wife deserves a lot of input in this
as she is been through even more than me.
So here get into the off season and see where we're at.
All right, GQ, thanks for all the comments.
I'm Alex Smith and I'm signing off internet.