Alex Smith's Injury Gives Chiefs Gauge of Recently Extended QB's Value

It’s improbable that the Kansas City Chiefs will get the help they need to make the playoffs on Sunday, but there’s no scenario where they make it if they lose to the San Diego Chargers. That may be a little harder because the team announced starting quarterback Alex Smith has a lacerated spleen—an injury that typically takes six weeks to heal.

The Chiefs will get a glimpse of the team without Smith, which doubles as a gauge of his value. It’ll be a small sample of what the team would be like if it didn't give Smith a four-year extension worth $68 million before the season, as backup Chase Daniel will start Sunday in Smith’s place.

Smith will return to his starter's status when he's healthy in 2015, unless Daniel leads the Chiefs to the Super Bowl. However unlikely that is, it would make the contract extension look horrible because Smith probably wouldn’t be getting his job back.

By diagnosing the lacerated spleen, the medical staff possibly saved Smith from a more severe injury. The most likely scenario is that Smith will make a full recovery, the Daniel sample against him will be scant and the Chiefs won’t be on the hook for injury guarantees in Smith’s contract had it been more serious.

Still, everyone is going to get a look at the difference between Daniel and Smith. Contractually, Daniel will make just $4.8 million next season to Smith’s $15.6 million, so we’ll find out just how much $10.8 million buys at the quarterback position going forward—at least in one meaningful game.

General manager John Dorsey and head coach Andy Reid obviously thought it bought them a lot or they wouldn’t have given Smith the big contract, but this is certainly a test, albeit a limited one.

Daniel’s lone career start came in Week 17 last year against this same Chargers team. Like then, the Chargers had to win the game to make the playoffs. Unlike then, the Chiefs need to win to have a chance at the postseason, and this game is in Kansas City.

Last season, Daniel and mostly backups played because the Chiefs were already in and had nothing to gain. Daniel completed 21 of his 30 passes but for just 200 yards and one touchdown. The Chiefs did have a 10-point lead going into the fourth quarter, but they blew it, and then kicker Ryan Succop missed a potential game-winning 41-yard field goal in the last seconds of regulation. 

In overtime, Daniel needed to get the Chiefs in field-goal range to tie or a touchdown to win and couldn’t do it. Of course, Daniel didn’t have running back Jamaal Charles, tight end Travis Kelce or wide receiver Dwayne Bowe.

He now finds himself in the same position again, this time with those weapons at his disposal. As quoted by Adam Teicher of ESPN.com, Daniel is excited for Week 17:

"

I wouldn’t rather have it any other way than to be put into a situation with everything on the line. I know the team believes in me and we’ll go out there and try to put drives together against a good San Diego defense.

"

Somehow, Daniel and not Smith has thrown the last touchdown pass caught by a Chiefs wide receiver. Slot receiver Dexter McCluster caught a two-yard pass from Daniel to give the Chiefs a 14-7 lead in the first quarter of last season’s regular-season finale.

Many believe Bowe was the last wide receiver to catch a touchdown pass because McCluster bounced around between running back and wide receiver, but he was the team’s primary slot receiver all of last season with 83 targets to just eight rushing attempts.

Smith still has a respectable 18 passing touchdowns, so the stat could just be a quirky one that is meaningless, but there’s no doubt that he doesn’t throw deep to his wide receivers. There is also no doubt that the offense sputters if the defense takes away the running game and short passing game and forces Smith to push the ball.

Year	Deep Pass %	Rank	TD%
2014	5.2	38/38	3.9
2013	8.1	38/40	4.5
2012	8.7	NR	6.0
2011	9.7	28/31	3.8
2010	10.1	29/37	4.1
2009	10.2	31/39	4.8
2007	14.0	8/40	1.0

Smith has attempted just 24 passes beyond 20 yards and completed just eight of them, according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required). That’s just 5.2 percent of his passes, the lowest percentage of deep passes of any qualified quarterback in the eight years Pro Football Focus has been tracking.

Given the struggles of the offense as a whole, the lack of involvement of wide receivers in the red zone and the reluctance of Smith to throw deep, it’ll be curious to see how Daniel does with the same players.

Of course, Daniel will have the same offensive line blocking in front of him that got Smith injured in the first place. The offensive line has struggled all season in pass protection despite the short-passing prowess of Smith.

The offensive line is 26th in sack percentage, having allowed 45 sacks through Week 16. Of all qualified quarterbacks, Smith is the fourth-most sacked quarterback this season, ahead of only Tony Romo, Colin Kaepernick and Blake Bortles. He is also the eighth-most pressured quarterback in the league.

To compensate, Smith has used play action 31 percent of the time this season. That’s just a hair less than Russell Wilson for the most in the league. Smith’s 8.1 yards per attempt and 69.4 percent completion rate on play-action passes are both sixth best in the league.

The only quarterbacks to complete more than 65 percent of their passes on play action with at least 8.0 yards per attempt this season so far are Smith, Philip Rivers, Tony Romo, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, Matt Ryan and Tom Brady. Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger and Ryan Fitzpatrick are all close with completion percentages just below 65 percent.

Player	Smith	Rivers	Romo	Brees	Rodgers	Ryan	Brady
PA%	31.0 (2)	8.0 (27)	17.3 (23)	16.8 (24)	23.6 (9)	18.3 (22)	26.4 (4)
Comp%	69.4% (6)	82.6% (1)	72.7% (2)	72.0% (3)	71.9% (4)	70.9% (5)	68.0% (9)
YPA	8.1 (14)	10.3 (2)	10.7 (1)	9.0 (7)	9.8 (5)	8.7 (9)	9.2 (6)
Pressure %	36.0% (8)	34.1 (12)	28.5 (23)	34.0 (13)	26.4 (25)	34.3% (11)	28.7 (22)

That’s great company considering Smith has used play action quite a bit more than all of them. It will be interesting to see how successful Daniel is with and without play action compared to Smith. Conventional wisdom suggests the play action is more effective when the running game is working, and that certainly was the key for Smith in 2014.

What’s weird is that the reliance on the running game has flipped since last year. The Chiefs were 4-5 when they rushed for 125 or more last season, and they’re 6-2 this year. That means they were 7-1 last year when they didn’t rush for 125 yards, and they’re 2-5 this season.

The switch may suggest that the offensive line is to blame for the team’s offensive performance this year and not Smith, the wide receivers or the running backs. Unless the pressure affects Daniel differently and he’s able to outperform Smith when pressured. Then, the problem would seem to be Smith, who is second to last among active quarterbacks in sack percentage to only Michael Vick.

What happens Sunday probably will have no bearing on who the starter is in 2015 and likely won’t result in a playoff berth, but it could at least give us an idea as to why the Chiefs struggled offensively in 2014.

Unless otherwise noted, all statistics via Pro-Football-Reference.com or Pro Football Focus (subscription required).