Alex Smith's NFL career has been a rollercoaster to say the least. After being drafted No. 1 overall by the 49ers in 2005, Smith battled through numerous coordinator and coaching changes in San Francisco before eventually being usurped as the team's starting quarterback by Colin Kaepernick after an injury in 2012.
Smith eventually was traded to the Kansas City Chiefs in 2013, where he performed admirably until another up-and-coming gunslinger once again overtook Smith for the starting QB job in 2018. That gunslinger was Patrick Mahomes, who went on to win the NFL MVP that season and led the Chiefs to a Super Bowl victory over the 49ers in his second year at the helm.
Mahomes' skills are otherworldly, but legendary 49ers quarterback Steve Young wants to make sure people don't forget about the impact Mahomes' predecessor in Kansas City had on the signal-caller.
"Alex is somebody that really had a great influence on Patrick Mahomes," Young told KNBR's "Tolbert, Krueger & Brooks" on Wednesday. "Patrick was reckless and wild coming out of college, but he had all that talent. If you're reckless and wild coming out of college and you wanted to come see a pro, who else would you want to be around than Alex Smith?"
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As Young also mentioned, Mahomes often has praised Smith for helping him adjust and adapt to the NFL.
"He was extremely important," Mahomes said during Super Bowl Week in January. "The way he went about his business and being a pro's pro, a great quarterback and also a great human being. He taught me a ton of just the process and how to blueprint your week and how to game plan. And then, how to read coverages by the little things. Maybe how the defensive line lines up and I think it helped me out a lot in the early part of my career, even still to this day of being able to get those invaluable lessons from him."
Chiefs coach Andy Reid echoed Mahomes' sentiments about Smith.
"Alex Smith was phenomenal," Reid said in January. "He wasn't asked to do this, but he let Patrick into his world. Patrick handled it the right way. He was humbled around Alex. He didn't try to overstep his bounds with Alex when he competed. With that, Alex let him kind of tag along on the field and off the field, showed him how to be a pro. How to study, your diet, your workout plan, family, how you work your family into the National Football League to be a great player in the National Football League.
"I joke about it, but it's true. Patrick couldn't pay Alex enough for what he gave him with the experience."
[RELATED: Five bold predictions for 49ers' 2020 NFL season]
Mahomes recently inked a 10-year extension with the Chiefs with the potential to be worth a staggering $503 million, so he probably could throw a few bucks Smith's way.
He's destined to be among the NFL's best quarterbacks of all time, but don't forget that Mahomes' rise in the NFL was shaped in part by Smith's guidance.
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