ASHBURN, Va. (AP) — Doug Williams looked at Alex Smith and slightly exaggerated the commitment the Washington Redskins made to their new soon-to-be 34-year-old quarterback.
“He can play to 40,” Williams said Thursday. “Can you, Alex? Look at him. I think he can.”
Smith smiled back and has plenty to be happy about. The veteran is now the Redskins’ franchise quarterback after being acquired from the Kansas City Chiefs and signing a $94 million, four-year extension with $71 million guaranteed that keeps him under contract through 2022.
He’d be 38 if he plays out that deal, one that shows the Redskins were willing to commit long term to Smith the way they never did with Kirk Cousins. As Williams implied Cousins didn’t want to be in Washington for the long haul, Smith made it clear he did.
“This is where I wanted to be,” Smith said. “It looked fun. I wanted to be a part of it.”
Smith gives the Redskins the kind of continuity at the position they lacked with Cousins, who became the first QB in NFL history to play back-to-back seasons under the franchise tag before signing a fully guaranteed $84 million, three-year deal with the Minnesota Vikings.
“I do believe that Washington had a lot of great pieces,” Cousins said at his introductory news conference. “They will have a lot of great pieces going forward and the margin of error is small. The difference between winning and losing is so small.”
Cousins’ year-to-year status and propensity for mistakes in big moments outweighed his three consecutive 4,000-yard seasons to Washington’s front office, which decided to target Smith.
“That’s somebody you can build your team around and know he’s going to be here, year in and year out,” coach Jay Gruden said. “You’re not always looking down the road: ‘Oh, who’s going to be our quarterback next year?’”
Williams said three or four other teams were also attempting to get Smith, which the Redskins did by sending a 2018 third-round pick and promising young cornerback Kendall Fuller to Kansas City.
Smith had some say in his destination because he had to agree to the extension that Williams joked, “If we have to add a couple more years to it, we’ll do that, too.”
That was never going to happen with Cousins, a 2012 fourth-round pick taken the same draft as Robert Griffin III who thrived under the impression he was not wanted. From the Redskins’ perspective, that went both ways.
“It wasn’t a matter of wanting to commit to the other guy,” Williams said of Cousins. “We had to look at it what we had to do that’s going to be best for us, somebody who wanted to be here.”
