DENVER — It might not seem that way from the buildup, but there will indeed be a quarterback on the field here Sunday night not named Peyton Manning.
Alex Smith might not have the outlandish passing numbers of his Hall of Fame counterpart, as he leads the unbeaten Chiefs against Manning’s 8-1 Broncos at Sports Authority Field at Mile High, but Smith certainly doesn’t have anything to apologize for, either.
Not only is 9-0 Kansas City less than one year removed from a 2-14 finish without him, but teams quarterbacked by Smith are a remarkable 29-5-1 in his past 35 starts dating to the 2011 season opener with San Francisco.
Not too shabby for someone derided as a “game manager” who lost his job in midseason with the 49ers last year before being traded to Kansas City and still isn’t getting much respect from pundits, even with the Chiefs the NFL’s lone remaining undefeated team.
To be fair, none of Kansas City’s nine victims this season currently has a winning record, and the league’s No. 1 scoring defense — not its 14th-ranked scoring offense led by Smith — has been the driving force behind the Chiefs’ dramatic turnaround in Andy Reid’s first season.
Other than not turn the ball over very often, Smith also has done little to earn defenders in his Kansas City debut. He has failed to throw a TD pass in five of the Chiefs’ first nine games, and Smith’s passer rating in four of the past five games has been 75.6 or worse (including a 56.9 rating in a 24-7 win over the Raiders in Week 7).
Peyton Manning, Smith most obviously is not. But neither does Smith deserve the mocking he continues to get from the Chiefs’ legion of skeptics around the country.
After all, Kansas City’s current defensive lineup looks a lot like the one they had while finishing 7-9 and 2-14 the previous two seasons. And it’s not as if the Chiefs had a sudden injection of talented skill players this year, considering they sent six players to the Pro Bowl last season from a team with the NFL’s worst record.
The only major change on the field came at quarterback, with Matt Cassel sent packing as soon as Reid realized he could get Smith in a trade. Since that one switch, the Chiefs have won as many games in less than three months as they did the previous two seasons combined.
Coincidence? Hardly.
Smith, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2005 draft, might not put up the huge numbers that cause analysts to gush (he has almost 1,200 fewer passing yards than Manning this year), but with a capable running game and a havoc-wreaking defense, Smith hasn’t needed to do so in 2013.
It’s not as if he is incapable of piling up yards, considering he threw for 3,144 yards while leading the 49ers to the NFC Championship game two years ago, which they lost to the upstart Giants in overtime, thanks to a fumble by punt returner Kyle Williams.
What Smith does best at this stage of his eight-year pro career is avoid the turnovers that plagued him early in his San Francisco tenure. He has thrown just four interceptions this season (avoiding a pick entirely in six of the nine games), which combined with a ball-hawking defense has enabled Kansas City to go into Sunday night’s matchup with a staggering plus-15 turnover margin for the season.
The Broncos will come out on top this time, but it will be home-field advantage and Manning’s arm — not Smith — that will be difference.
PICK: Broncos, 28-24