Alex Smith comeback story (Getty Images)
Washington lost that game 30-10. But Joe Theismann, who suffered his own famous career-ending leg injury on national television in 1985, watched that game and said afterward, “I don’t care what anyone else does this year in the league; he’s the comeback player of the year right now. He went 5-1 in those six starts. The run came down to Week 17 at Philadelphia. A team that had gone 3-13 the previous season and fired its entire coaching staff was in the playoffs, driven in large part by a quarterback the organization had not particularly wanted on the roster. Smith finished the regular season with 1,582 passing yards, six touchdowns, and a 66.7 percent completion rate. Smith was released by the team in March 2021 at his own request, and on April 19, he announced his retirement on Instagram. Smith entered the league in 2005 as the first overall pick by the San Francisco 49ers. He spent seven years there, endured a quarterback controversy with Colin Kaepernick, moved to Kansas City, mentored a then-rookie Patrick Mahomes in 2017, and was traded to Washington after one of his best statistical seasons.
“Because even though I’ve got plenty of snaps left in me, after 16 years of giving this game everything I’ve got, I can’t wait to see what else is possible. He won. Washington won, and the NFC East title was clinched. A calf injury kept him out of the wild-card game against Tampa Bay, and Washington lost.
“Butterflies, energy, you know going out there, certainly some anxiety… just because of all the unknowns and what we’ve been through and the ramifications,” he said. His retirement statement said it plainly. “I want to say thank you for believing in me, and thank you for helping me believe in myself and in the impossible,” he wrote.
The numbers were modest. Smith felt those same pre-game nerves differently from any debut he had ever known. Coming back from a life-threatening injury is one thing. Doing it under NFL game conditions, with Aaron Donald on the other side of the line, is something entirely different. Three games after his return from the bench, Kyle Allen suffered a leg injury and Smith became Washington’s starter. The wins included the Pittsburgh Steelers, who were undefeated at the time, and the San Francisco 49ers, the reigning NFC champions. Smith was not the most explosive quarterback in the league anymore. But he was calm. He read defenses. He managed games. By the numbers alone, it was a solid but unremarkable year. By context, it was extraordinary. The NFL has had injury comebacks before. Quarterbacks have returned from torn ACLs, broken ribs, shoulder surgeries. What happened to Alex Smith sits in a category by itself. The comparison his doctors used was not to sports injuries. It was to combat wounds. Soldiers come back from the battlefield with the kind of injuries Smith sustained. The difference is they are not expected to then win games in the NFL. Three-time Pro Bowler. Sixteen years in the league. And the chapter that ended his career is also the chapter most people remember. Join conversation Share your thoughts in the comments Be respectful · TOI community guidelines Washington’s owners Dan and Tanya Snyder called it “the greatest comeback in professional sports history. That is a claim with competition. But it is hard to name another athlete who was sedated for weeks while doctors debated whether to remove a limb, then returned to win a divisional title two years later.
Smith started on a strained right calf, the same right leg that had nearly been amputated two years earlier.
On November 18, 2018, a routine third-quarter sack turned into one of the most harrowing medical situations in NFL history. Over the next several weeks, Smith battled sepsis, survived 17 surgeries, and woke up from heavy sedation to face the possibility of amputation. Smith later showed the scarring in ESPN’s documentary *Project 11*, pointing to graft after graft and calling them out by name.
Because medically, it had been, it was a leg that looked like it had been through a war,.
He later said he was “absolutely gutted” and “felt sick and terrible” about what had happened. West later said she told him, “just to get rid of it. Do anything you can to save it,” he said. Where to start?” he said in one clip. “Two years ago, I was stuck in a wheelchair staring down at my mangled leg wondering if I’d ever be able to go on a walk with my wife again or play games with my kids in the yard,” he said later.
J.J. Watt and Kareem Jackson collapsed on Alex Smith ‘s right leg, snapping his tibia and fibula in a spiral compound fracture. The bone broke through the skin. What followed was not a football story anymore. It was a fight to stay alive. Two years later, he was named the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year. The injury happened fast but the fallout lasted years. When Smith dropped back to pass in the third quarter against Houston, Watt got through the line first, followed by Jackson. Smith went down in an awkward heap, his right leg bending backward under the weight of two defensive players. The compound fracture meant bone had broken through the skin, an open wound that instantly raised the risk of severe infection. J.J. Watt, to his credit, felt the weight of the moment immediately. Smith was carted off the field, and the Washington locker room fell quiet. The infection that developed was not ordinary. Smith contracted necrotizing fasciitis, commonly known as flesh-eating bacteria, and his body’s response triggered stage-two sepsis. Sepsis is a condition where the body’s attempt to fight infection begins damaging its own organs. It can be fatal. Smith was hospitalized for nearly a month, sedated for weeks at a stretch while doctors worked to save his life. When Smith finally woke up from that heavy sedation, he was confronted with a choice doctors and his family had already been quietly discussing without him. His wife Elizabeth had asked his surgeon, Dr. Robin West, to consider amputation. Her priority was simple: keep him alive. Dr. ‘I just want him to live and walk out of here.'” But when doctors finally put the decision to Smith himself, he had a different answer. “Do what you can to save my leg. Seventeen surgeries. That number is almost hard to process when you hear it. Each operation carried its own risk, and many of them were focused specifically on removing infected tissue to stop the spread. Doctors took muscle from his quadriceps, the vastus lateralis, and used it to reconstruct the damage lower on his leg. “The scars? Once the infection was finally cleared, Smith was placed in an external fixator and had to wear it for eight months. He also developed drop foot. A nerve condition that affects the ability to lift the front of the foot. Walking normally was not guaranteed. Running was a distant concept. The rehab process that followed was unlike anything the average NFL quarterback had encountered. Smith worked alongside veterans from the military who had suffered combat injuries. The Center for the Intrepid, which typically treats wounded service members, became part of his recovery program. It changed his perspective. “Putting my helmet back on was the farthest thing from my mind. I kept asking myself, ‘All this for a stupid game?'”
Did Alex Smith’s own team believe he could come back?
Washington brought in a new coaching staff under Ron Rivera ahead of the 2020 season, and Smith was viewed, by his own admission, as an afterthought. Smith was placed on the physically unable to perform list at the start of training camp in July 2020. He pushed to get into 11-on-11 sessions to prove what he could still do, lobbied coaches to keep him on the 53-man roster instead of placing him on injured reserve, and made the active roster for Week 1 in September. October 11, 2020. 693 days after Smith’s injury, Kyle Allen took a hit and went down with an arm injury, and Smith entered the game. During Smith’s three years with Washington, the team went 11-5 in games he started and 6-27 with anyone else at quarterback. He won the NFL’s 2020 Comeback Player of the Year. Stay updated with the latest Asian Games 2026 news , check the Asian Games medal tally and complete Asian Games schedule .
He won a division title.
“They didn’t see it, didn’t want me there, didn’t want me to be a part of it, didn’t want me to be on the team, the roster, didn’t want to give me a chance,” he told GQ Magazine. He told local radio that if Smith could return to form, the team would have “a good situation” and “competition at that position. Elizabeth said afterward that she thought she was going to vomit from nerves watching him line up. And according to Elizabeth, he was smiling. And it was like he knew… he knew in that moment, ‘I can do this,'” she said.
The short answer is no, at least not initially. “When I decided to come back, I definitely threw a wrench in the team’s plan. ” Rivera publicly kept the door open. But behind the scenes, there was genuine doubt. One Washington employee who saw the ESPN documentary footage of Smith’s leg reportedly asked, “What doctor would clear him to play after seeing that? He spent the first four weeks as the third-string quarterback. Watching. Waiting. Washington vs. the Los Angeles Rams. His family gave him a standing ovation from the stands. His third play back was a sack by Aaron Donald. One of the most dominant defensive players in the league drove Smith into the turf. Smith got up. He jogged back to the huddle. “I’m like ‘why’re you smiling right now? And then he walked away on his own terms, on two legs, which for a while nobody was sure he would have. Get the latest Sports News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.