The final four teams playing this season are quarterbacked by Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Ben Roethlisberger and Matt Ryan, a group that was described as three Hall of Famers and the favorite for MVP this year in a question posed to Chiefs coach Andy Reid at a Monday press conference.
Reid was asked about whether Alex Smith measured up to that group when it came to being able to get the Chiefs to the next level of success.
“Do I still think you can win with Alex? We were right there to do that,” Reid said, via the Kansas City Star. “He made a phenomenal throw on the two-point play to put us in a position to take care of business. This wasn’t all about Alex, that’s not what this was. That’s not what this came down to.”
One question for any team that might contemplate a quarterback change is whether they can find someone better than what’s already on hand and it’s an especially important one for a team like the Chiefs that have so many other pieces in place at the moment.
Upgrading on Smith from freely available talent won’t be easy and the Chiefs know what to expect from Smith. There’s a low ceiling for offensive fireworks, but there are also limited mistakes and the combination has worked well enough for them to go to the playoffs three times over the last four years. For those reasons and the near $10 million in dead money the Chiefs would have if they cut Smith, thinking about who might be next in line at quarterback seems likelier than a change in the starting lineup in 2017.