CRAIG GLAZER REVEALS CHIEFS QB ALEX SMITH WANTS TO ESCAPE KANSAS CITY!!!

TKC NOTE: Now that the Royals season is basically over . . . Our pal Craig Glazer reveals some pretty great insights into Kansas City's favorite losing sports team and talk of discontent. Take a look:

Does Chief’s Quarterback Alex
Smith Want Out?

As I have written about earlier this late winter, the Chiefs clearly are in a rebuilding mode.

The franchise was dependent upon its core players, nearly all of whom are first round draft picks, stepping up. Even with a new Head Coach and General Manager, this core group of players looked to be much more of a bust than anything else.

The core group is Dwayne Bowe, Eric Berry, Brandon Flowers, Jamaal Charles, Tamba Hali, Justin Houston, Derrick Johnson and Dontari Poe. So far this group has been disappointing overall. Only Charles and Johnson have really played at a top notch level consistently. The proof is in the numbers. This group even with a new GM, Head Coach and Quarterback still laid a big egg this past season. I know, everyone wants to talk about the Chiefs 11 and 5 record and going to the Playoffs as a Wild Card. After going 9 and 0 with a weak offense and a questionable defense, the Chiefs went 2 and 6 including the embarrassing loss to the Colts in their one Playoff game. The Chiefs only two victories were over last place teams Washington and Oakland. Both of these last place teams had littel trouble moving the ball up and down the field against a defense which by seasons end was one of the worst in the NFL. Most notably the defense lacked both pass rushing and pass defense capability.

Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith was one of the two bright spots on the entire team. Smith proved to be a great leader by season’s end an outstanding quarterback in that he had no one to throw the ball to so he invented recievers and was putting up big points in games with San Diego, Denver and Indianapolis. In fact Alex and Jamaal played well enough in all these games to win with the possible exception of the first Denver game. I believe had the Chiefs defeated the Colts in post-season, Smith’s contract wouldn’t be as big an issue today. That loss was certainly not his fault. One could argue that Alex Smith played some of the best football over his last several games with the Chiefs, but due to the team’s horrific defense, he was unable to win any of those big games.

While the Chiefs seem to be interested in paying Alex somewhere between 12 and 14 million a year, after this season he is looking for a contract that would be higher, probably 16 to 18 million a year. Smith is in the second and final year of his contract with the Chiefs so he will be the starting quarterback this year. If they don’t come to terms the Chiefs could franchise him and make him play next year much like they did Brandon Albert this past year. Brandon has now left the team.

The reality is this. Alex Smith is thirty one years old and I believe he’s an under-rated talent in the NFL. Clearly he’s a very smart player and student of the game. He can see that this franchise is likely to continue to fail over the next couple of seasons. Smith can see that because the front office fumbled the ball when it came to CAP dollars they were unable to hold onto important assets on Smith’s side of the football, including Brandon Albert, Geoff Schwartz and Dexter McCluster to name a few. The problem is the Chiefs have no one to replace these three. Most important to Smith, he has no offensive line to protect him. Eric Fisher will replace Brandon at Left Tackle. Fisher could not hold down the Guard spot last year as a number one draft pick and it is highly unlikely he will hold down the much tougher role of a tackle and guarding the quarterback.

Alex has played an NFC Championship game with the ‘Niners and now a post-season game with the Chiefs when he, along with Charles, was the critical ingredient to making that happen. Smith feels he has at least five years left as a starter and if you aren’t going to pay him a lot of money, he needs to be on a team that has a chance at post season glory. This franchise does not.

I was glad to hear that the Chiefs are trying to trade at least Brandon Flowers and possibly Eric Berry, as both are highly over-rated and undeserving of the All-League honors they have garnered over the past two years. It’s time for the Chiefs to be bold and take a big shot, move up in the draft, try and get Johnny Manziel as your quarterback. Maybe, just maybe, he’s the next John Elway. Let’s draft him and find out. What do you have to lose? For the last half-century you haven’t appeared in the Superbowl and you have won THREE post season games. Let’s try something different.
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