Alex Smith should’ve been a unanimous choice for Comeback Player of the Year

The Washington Football Team received a couple of well-deserved awards at the 2021 NFL Honors on Saturday night.

Chase Young was named the NFL’s Defensive Rookie of the Year for his strong performance during his 7.5-sack rookie campaign. And, of course, Alex Smith was named the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year for obvious reasons.

In six starts, Smith led the Washington Football Team to a 5-1 record and helped them climb into the playoffs with a 7-9 record in the weak NFC East. But his stats aren’t the most impressive part of his comeback.

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By now, everyone knows Smith’s story. He suffered a broken leg in 2018 that nearly ended his career, and, by all accounts, probably should have. His leg was infected during initial attempts to repair it. He nearly lost his limb. He nearly lost his life. Yet, somehow, he managed to make a full comeback after 17 surgeries and two years off the football field.

When Smith stepped on the field against the Los Angeles Rams, he virtually sealed his status as the Comeback Player of the Year. He had defied the odds and the fact that he ever stepped on the field mattered more than any stats he would put up on the season. His ability to stabilize the performance of the team and lead them to the playoffs was just gravy. And it made him the clear-cut option for the award.

But Alex Smith was wronged by one voter.

Well, it did for 49 of the 50 voters that selected the winner. Somehow, despite his herculean effort to get back onto the field, one of the voters decided that Ben Roethlisberger was deserving of the award.

Now, in a normal year, there would be nothing wrong with this. Roethlisberger was sidelined for most of the 2019 season with an elbow injury and there were serious questions about whether or not he would return to the Steelers and still be a capable passer. He was, and he led the team to a 12-3 record in 15 starts to go along with 3,803 yards, 33 TDs, and just 10 interceptions. He also led the team to an 11-0 start on the season.

In any ordinary year, Roethlisberger would probably be a shoo-in for the honor, or at the very least, a top contender. But this is not a normal year, and Smith’s comeback is far from normal.

Alex Smith’s comeback is the greatest in sports history. There’s no doubt about it. He went from nearly dying to quarterbacking a playoff team in just over two years. He was never expected to play again, but he did. Were his stats anything special? No. But this is a rare case where it wasn’t about the numbers. It was about Smith reaching the unlikely end goal of his life-altering journey.

The voter who chose Roethlisberger and kept Smith from being the unanimous choice for the award whiffed here. Harping on one vote may seem silly, but the fact of the matter is that Smith deserved to be the unanimous choice, and that should’ve been obvious to everybody who voted.

Smith still decisively (and deservedly) received the award, but to that one voter that chose not to go with Smith, I kindly ask you to look back and re-evaluate the decision. Look back at Smith’s injury. Look back at the work he put into his comeback. And look back to what he did accomplish on the field this year.

If you still believe that Roethlisberger should’ve received the award over Smith after that, I would be shocked. And so would most every other NFL fan.