Not many thought this day would come.
And even for Alex Smith, who played his first NFL game since a gruesome leg injury kept him out for 693 days, it was “obviously very surreal at first.”
“I’d be lying if I said there weren’t a lot of days when I didn’t think it was going to happen,” Smith said after playing in Washington's 30-10 defeat to the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday.
"It was great to be out there," he said. "The feeling, the range of emotions -- the good and the bad -- is why I fought so hard to come back. I think sometimes you can take it for granted, and certainly being away from it for a couple of years, I've missed it. So good to be back in it rolling, and like I said, we'll look at the film and get better and keep moving forward."
Smith, who entered the game in the 2nd quarter after Washington Football’s starting quarterback Kyle Allen left the game due to an injury, came into the game in the middle of a series.
“To have it happen as fast as it did was probably almost a blessing,” Smith added. “It was kind of nice in that sense to not think about it and just go out there and do it.”
And Smith was tossed right into the fire early: He was sacked by Aaron Donald on the third play of his return.
“The first hit felt good,” he said about getting hit. “It’s nice to know that you were fine. It was nice to kind of knock the cobwebs off, so to speak.”
His wife, Elizabeth, who was watching with their children from the FedEx Field stands, felt slightly different about the hit: She felt like she was “going to vomit” when he ran onto the field.
But head coach Ron Rivera isn’t on Elizabeth’s side.
“Well that was good to see, to be honest, now you know he could handle it," Rivera said about seeing Smith get sacked.
"That’s the one thing we didn’t see through training camp was whether or not he could take the hit," Rivera said. "He handled it, he handled it very well."
The Washington head coach added he was impressed with the veteran quarterback’s ability to recover from the injury and stay ready for a possible return.
"Again, he’s done a great job. It’s a hell of a story,” he said.
Rivera announced Allen will still be the starter next Sunday against the New York Giants and Smith will be the backup with Dwayne Haskins benched.
And if Smith must be called on again, he knows his play (just 37 yards passing) needs to get better.
“The second half was tough,” Smith said. “Frustrating in a lot of ways. Never fun to go out and play like that.”
