Embrace the new, no matter how uncomfortable, and make it work for you.
Alex Smith
To a lot of people, I might just be the guy who went No. 1 in the draft. Or the guy who lost his job to Colin Kaepernick. Or the guy who helped turn a 2-14 Chiefs team into a back-to-back division champ... but then couldn't put them over the top.
Failures and setbacks are inevitable for all of us.
Game day can be emotional, and there are a lot of ups and downs throughout a game, but as a quarterback, you have to be able to see the bigger picture, steady that ship, get all the guys focused in on the task at hand, and keep the thing moving.
At the combine and at my workouts, I tried to be the perfect player. I tried to promote my strengths and conceal my weaknesses, and on paper, I kind of succeeded: I was the first pick in the draft. And with that, I inherited this big shiny trophy that I carried around, and it had one word engraved on it - anxiety.
Certainly, there were tough times, but no, you can't go back and change it. So, why dwell on it?
I can just remember games as a young player, counting my stats on the sideline. 'What am I now? I'm this many completions for this many attempts. I wonder what my rating is.'
For me, it's about winning games. I'm trying to score more points than the other team. I don't really care how we do it.
I carried around a lot of weight and anxiety - expectations of being a top draft pick and fulfilling those. It was really burdensome and not fun. Stressful. I had to go through some things before I finally turned that around and got back to playing for the right reasons.
I put a lot of pressure on myself. Sometimes you are your own worst enemy.
You look at the best players in the league, the best players at quarterback - I mean Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, the top names - none of those guys are throwing it through a brick wall. They'll have touch.
I've seen a rebuild, and I've seen how quickly things can turn around when guys buy in.
Dead silence is so much more foreign to me than people screaming at me, good or bad.
Once you pull the trigger, you've got to throw balls aggressively and with conviction.
When I was young, I just tried to please everybody.
When I got drafted, I was a spread-option quarterback. It was, 'OK, you've got to get under center, throw to the fullback, throw to the tight end. You've got to learn to be a pro quarterback.' And there was a learning curve there, and I did have to learn some of that.
You love playing on a national stage - anytime you get these games. The Thursday ones are tough; I have a mixed opinion. I think if you win them, they're awesome because you get another little bye week in there, so to speak. They're tough on the quick turnaround.
As a quarterback, I always feel like it's my job to be that steady, calm presence in there.
If you don't go out there and play winning football, they're going to try and find somebody who can.
It's football. Guys get hurt all the time.
I don't really care how many yards I throw for; as long as we score more points than the guys we're playing.
I don't measure myself in my contract in terms of what I'm making.
We can never fully plan our future, so don't try.
To continue to fight, not get frustrated, to stay together and find a way - I think that's important. I think good teams do that.
That's what you want; that's what you want to play for: fans that are in it and want it as bad as you do.
It is healthy to have competition and intense competition, and then, when you walk away from it, you are still teammates, and you play the same position and that we can still put the team first.
This is the honest truth: I could absolutely care less on yards per game. I think that's a totally overblown stat.
In this league, you can't take your foot off the gas pedal. You think you have something won, but teams are too good, too talented.
Instincts and fundamentals take over sometimes.
No quarterback goes out there and plays well on his own.
More often than not as a quarterback, your performance is a reflection of the guys around you. I've been fortunate to be around some pretty good guys.
I don't know if there were many pros for me playing early. I feel like I dug myself a pretty deep hole that rookie year.
I was on some bad teams, and I played bad as a young player, certainly, at times. And that all mounts. Yeah, that all mounts. The perception. Everything that goes into that. And so, yeah, I think to kind of get over the hump of that, to change perception, it can be difficult. It's a tall task. And it takes a long time.
It's easy when you're always winning.
As a quarterback, especially when I come off to the sideline, I am trying to get things corrected, trying to get things figured out and move on to the next series.
I really have fun playing golf.
I think as I've gotten older and the things I've gone through, I'm not as concerned about what everybody thinks.
That's a special time, to get drafted.
There are so many good things, great things that go on in this league.
I love Kansas City. I love the coaching staff, the players.
Quarterback play starts with your eyes and feet. Those have to be in the right place and have to be on time.
I think that's the great thing about the NFL. You're out there, and there are very few perennials. It's a battle every single year. You can go first to worst, worst to first.
I know guys respect work ethic, and they respect the guys that are invested and committed.
Sometimes when you've only got a few snaps, guys try to do too much and try to make too much happen.
Most of the time, you're just trying to be the point guard out there based on the play call and the defense that you're getting; that really dictates where the football goes.
You're frustrated when things aren't going right. When you're out there, you have your piece of it, your view. It isn't until usually the next day when you're watching the film that you get to put all the pieces together: 'Oh, this is what happened on that play'; 'This is why I did that.' You don't totally know that game day.
Obviously, flagrant things have to be called. There are rules. You have got to play to the rules, no question.
When I graduated from Utah, I was headed into the biggest job interview of my life, the NFL Draft.
It wasn't until I stopped worrying about my own validation and finally refocused my energy on things I could actually change that I finally grew as a person and as a professional.
The No. 1 stat is wins. As a quarterback, you get evaluated on winning.
