Early Alex Smith news trickles out

Oh, Mr. Smith, you are the gift that won't stop giving.

And I don't mean that negatively. It's a testament to how big of a deal he is here in the Bay that I still pay attention to the man. And I do. Over at Yahoo! Sports, there is a nice article on Alex Smith and the sort of impact he is having over in Kansas City. And, without hesitating, I clicked on the link. Why? For the same reason you all have probably already opened that link above in another tab: we at NN are all addicted to Alex Smith. We just cannot get enough. He was a guy that was so hard to pin down, for about five years, and then all of a sudden, he was so easy to understand.

I mean, the offseason has barely started, and the folks in Kansas City are already saying all the right things. Just to pull a couple of quotations from the article, "Just watching Steve Young back in the day, he's that kind of guy," wide receiver Dwayne Bowe said Wednesday. ‘He's not too vocal about it, but when he's in the huddle, he makes his presence known. He's demanding guys speed up - I mean, I never had a quarterback like that.'" The Young comparison is probably over the top, but yes, Alex always seemed to have that quiet and cool presence in the huddle.

Another one: "'He's a great quarterback, a guy that's mobile, a guy that knows how to read defense and take advantage of mismatches,' wide receiver Dexter McCluster said. ‘He's definitely confident. As a quarterback, you need to be confident. But knowing him, he's never shaken.'" And this: "‘He seems to be picking things up fairly easily,' Reid acknowledged earlier in the week, adding that Smith has stood out as a ‘very hard worker, very diligent, and I appreciate that.'"

These both speak to Smith's greatest asset: his mind. The guy has always been a cerebral QB, and I don't find it surprising at all that players and coaches are being drawn to the smart, confidence QB that Alex has become. He's been in Kansas City for, like, three days and people are already saying the right things.

An Alex is an Alex is an Alex. He'll probably be the same guy in Missouri that he was here for the last couple of years. And that means two things. 1) Good for the Chiefs. That's exactly what they need right now. And 2) I'm still going to obsessively follow his career, rooting for him all along.