See how Alex Smith performs in the red zone compared to rest of AFC West

[beach tribe]

It was a breezy, borderline chilly, Sunday afternoon in mid-November last season. The 7-2 Kansas City Chiefs were at home against the five-loss Tampa Bay Buccaneers, rolling with a five-game winning streak that included victories over the New Orleans Saints at home and the Oakland Raiders and Carolina Panthers on the road.

It was also ... confession time ... my first visit to Arrowhead Stadium.

I will say, it was an experience I’ll never forget. The atmosphere, the tailgating, the fans ... it was all amazing. But, at the same time, it was just about as frustrating a game as you’ll ever see.

The funny thing is, though, Alex Smith had your typical, average Alex Smith performance. The Chiefs QB threw for 261 yards, had one touchdown and one rushing touchdown, along with one interception. Pretty so-so, but that seems to be then norm for No. 11. Spencer Ware rushed for 69 yards on 17 attempts, a stat line that pretty much was his average performance on the ground in 2016.

I did some digging and found the postgame column of The Kansas City Star’s Sam Mellinger. You don’t have to read too much to remind yourself of how that game panned out.

What could’ve been another ugly Chiefs win turned into an ugly-as-vomit 19-17 loss to the mediocre Buccaneers at home on Sunday the moment quarterback Alex Smith executed a bad throw, poorly leading to an interception in the end zone when even a field goal would’ve probably been enough to win.

The biggest frustration, aside from the inability of the offense to score, was the red zone performance by Smith. Most notably, Smith threw a crucial interception from Tampa Bay’s six-yard line (the one referenced by Sam above) with KC trailing 12-10 early in the fourth quarter.

I won’t spend too much time dwelling on the Smith interception, but it appeared to be a predetermined read, where Smith failed to notice Chris Conte waiting in the middle of the end zone.

And as a Chiefs fan, you probably feel that this missed throw in the tweet below by Smith is one you see every Sunday.

Click here to see Tigerupyourbutt's lover boy make one of the throws that led to his AFCW ranking:
https://www.arrowheadpride.com/2017/...red-zone-stats

The Chiefs scored in the red zone 46 percent of the time in 2016, which was 26th-best in the league. That’s about 10 percent worse than Kansas City’s red zone conversion rate in 2015.

Plus, what really makes the red zone inefficiency by Smith & Co. so frustrating is that the offensive line for the Chiefs did a pretty good job in 2016. According to Pro Football Focus, the Chiefs offensive line allowed the fewest pressures in 2016 (they tied with the Raiders) and Smith saw the lowest percentage of pressures on third down.

For an offense that operates like the Chiefs, scoring in the red zone has to be one of the most important parts of their game. Minus Tyreek Hill running wild throughout the field, there isn’t a big-play threat out there. It’s reasonable to contribute the lack of a play maker to Smith’s inability or unwillingness to take shots down the field.

So, if you were asked a trivia question on where Smith ranked in red zone passing performance in the AFC West in 2016, you’d be a winner if you answered with ... “dead last.”
2016 AFC West Red Zone QB Stats
Quarterback Passing Completion % Passing Yards TD INT Passer Rating Yards/Attempt Rushing Yards
Derek Carr 44/90 47% 306 19 1 91.9 3.4 -7
Philip Rivers 45/96 47% 333 22 2 86.5 3.5 1
Trevor Siemian 28/55 51% 164 10 1 89 3 5
Alex Smith 29/63 46% 167 11 3 72.7 2.7 51
Statistics via Pro Football Reference

The only real edge that Smith has over the other three quarterbacks actually has nothing to do with his passing game. He has 51 rushing yards; the other three have -6 combined rushing yards. Congratulations.

Trevor Siemian threw for one less touchdown than Smith did in the red zone in 2016 but had eight less pass attempts. Smith’s passer rating was 16.3 percentage points worse than the next-best rating, owned by Siemian (89).

The Chiefs are at the point now where no one reasonably expects them to be any better than an average offense so long as Smith is behind center. The AFC West won’t be an easy division to play in in 2017 by any means, and if the Chiefs want to compete for a playoff run, improvement in the red zone should be one of their highest priorities.

[Hammock Parties]

Another clean pocket. But he just looks to run....because he's a pussy.

[Hammock Parties]

You wanna see what a QB who isn't scared of the rush looks like?

[beach tribe]

That's all in ONE ****ING GAME!!

Edit: Except the last two.

[Sweet Daddy Hate]

Originally Posted by rico

Lies and/or excuses infest every one of your posts. This time it's lies. As soon as the Chiefs move on from Smith, you will be falling apart. When Smith is no longer playing, football will no longer be a part of your life because to you, Alex is football. You'll probably break down and end up on Skid Row, giving out blowjobs for expired Subway stamps... Your meltdown will hit its peak when you go to Subway and try to purchase a sub sandwich and they inform you that they haven't had the Subway stamp deal for over 10 years. A bunch of BJ's for nothing. You'll just have to eat the stamps to get by. You'll be so heartbroken...

Bless you, child.

Also, Clay STRAIGHT ass-raping Tigger Multing**** right on back to the cardboard box he crawled out of.

[Hammock Parties]

Originally Posted by Sweet Daddy Hate

Clay STRAIGHT ass-raping Tigger Multing**** right on back to the cardboard box he crawled out of.

[Reerun_KC]

Wow.

[NJChiefsFan]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

Alex had a typical Alex games against the Bucs, there's no doubt. But this writer undermines his point by claiming that the Bucs were "mediocre", which is outright bullshit.

The Bucs are a rising team that challenged for the NFC South crown with a 9-7 record. In addition to beating the Chiefs, they took the Raiders to overtime, beat the Seahawks, beat the Falcons once and the Panthers twice and lost on the road to the Cowboys by 6 points. This was no "mediocre" team.

The writer also fails to mentioned that Marcus Peters didn't play against the Bucs, which meant 5'11 Steve Nelson matched up against 6'5 Pro Bowl WR Mike Evans, which was a disaster.

Maclin missed the game and by that point, Spencer Ware had done his usual 4th quarter of the season disappearing act.

Had Maclin and Peters been available, the Chiefs would most likely have won that game, despite Alex being Alex.

Agreed. Well said.

[TigeRRUppeRRcut]

Who allowed the meth head back on CP? Oh that's right, he got his make-a-wish.

[TigeRRUppeRRcut]

Originally Posted by beach tribe

He's #1 vs the rush because he never throws the ball more than 5 yards.
It's like you've never watched the guy play. He CONSTANTLY bails out of clean pockets. Look at all the gifs of missed TDs where he bails from phantom pressure.

He's DEAD LAST in air yards.
DEAD LAST in red zone efficiency.
27th in TD passes.
22nd in Yards passing.

Those are the #s of a QB that SUCKS.

You can cherry pick all the BS stats you want.

Even the ones that seem like he's good at, like the one you posted, are good because he sucks.
His rating is good vs the rush because he checks down or throws the ball behind the line of scrimmage.

Cool story , girl. The fact is, he's #1 against the blitz and he's stellar when he has to make reads. His QBR has climbed year after year, and he continues to add more W's and is getting closer to the playoffs. Now if our highly paid supporting cast will actually show up in the playoffs, maybe we'll get a chance to win it all.

[Sweet Daddy Hate]

Originally Posted by TigerUppercut

Cool story , girl. The fact is, he's #1 against the blitz and he's stellar when he has to make reads. His QBR has climbed year after year, and he continues to add more W's and is getting closer to the playoffs. Now if our highly paid supporting cast will actually show up in the playoffs, maybe we'll get a chance to win it all.

No one on that squad wants to waste their time and energy trying to drag that turd of yours to the Settling Basin of Greatness.

Give it up, Sparky; Alex supporters die off by the day and will begin to run for the life boat en-masse once they get a taste of the Mahomey Super Penii Slinger unleashing the dragon!

[RunKC]

Here's the other easy TD Alex missed to Ware:

https://mobile.twitter.com/RealMNchi...55325681491968

To recap, we've got clear evidence of Alex missing wide open TD's with clean pockets being:

Ware vs Houston
Ware vs Atlanta
Conley vs Carolina
Hill vs Pitt

That's 4 so far and we haven't really even dig into it. Hmmm can you guys guess why we drafted Patrick Mahomes?

[Reerun_KC]

What's the old saying? The sooner Alex gets CTE, the better?

[NWTF]

Originally Posted by RippedmyFlesh

These QBs saw the least amount of pressure on 3rd downs

Originally Posted by Hammock Parties

And on third down...

4. Big Ben 108.0
5. Brees 107.9
10. Carr 90.7
30. Smith 72.5

This either doesnt add up or is laughable.

The top 4 protected QBs on 3rd down.
Not surprisingly 3 of them rank in the top ten on 3rd down plays, as one would expect as they see the least amount of pressure on that down........ the other ranks 30th?

[Hammock Parties]

100% honest to god truth, bud.

If you really want to deep dive...

Big Ben - 133 att - 58.6% - 8.58 YPA - 11 TD - 2 INT - 6 sacks

Brees - 163 att - 67.5 - 8.1 YPA - 14 TD - 5 INT - 10 sacks

Carr - 155 att - 56.8% - 6.94 YPA - 7 TD - 1 INT - 5 sacks

Smith - 130 att - 60% - 6.68 YPA - 2 TD - 3 INT - 11 sacks

Smith is an oft-sacked cuck who doesn't throw the ball down the field or throw touchdowns on third down.

[NWTF]

Originally Posted by Hammock Parties

100% honest to god truth, bud.

If you really want to deep dive...

Big Ben - 133 att - 58.6% - 8.58 YPA - 11 TD - 2 INT - 6 sacks

Brees - 163 att - 67.5 - 8.1 YPA - 14 TD - 5 INT - 10 sacks

Carr - 155 att - 56.8% - 6.94 YPA - 7 TD - 1 INT - 5 sacks

Smith - 130 att - 60% - 6.68 YPA - 2 TD - 3 INT - 11 sacks

Smith is an oft-sacked cuck who doesn't throw the ball down the field or throw touchdowns on third down.

Some of those sacks are self created by abandoning the play before it develops and scrambling into a sack.