Why Did NFL Players Snub Alex Smith from the Top 100?

Alex Smith is one of the 100 best players in the NFL. Probably.

Let's not gush with so much praise that we embarrass the guy or anything, but he absolutely deserves to at least crack the bottom of such a list. Maybe.

So the new Redskins quarterback's being left off NFL Network's Top 100 list this offseason...that's a snub. Perhaps.

It's not a travesty or miscarriage of justice, but it qualifies as a misdemeanor snub. Right?

Not to go through and line-item veto players who were selected, but Smith has accomplished much more over a longer career than Packers safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, who came in 100th, or Browns running back Carlos Hyde, who has never rushed for 1,000 yards, been elected to a Pro Bowl or played on a winning team but was ranked 97th. Smith should be ahead of these players. Almost certainly.

Heck, Kirk Cousins cracked the Top 100—which we all know is a legally binding document with the power to shape legacies, not cable television airspace filler that evaporates upon impact with actual news—as the NFL's 94th-best player. Cousins spent last year missing the playoffs in Washington, generating mediocre stats and friend-zoning his organization during contract negotiations. Meanwhile, Smith was an early-season MVP candidate who was coasting to a playoff victory with the Chiefs before Andy Reid suffered his annual mental hard drive crash.

The Skins chose Smith over Cousins, and fans inside the Beltway need to know the reasons weren't purely financial, even if the inclusion of Cousins over Smith makes it look like a 7-9 team just downgraded at quarterback because it lost a game of franchise-tag chicken.

The Top 100 list, voted on by players, was released this week. As usual, it was a mix of living legends, guys with oversized reputations and newcomers coming off breakthrough years. (It's as if the players don't take the balloting all that seriously and just circle some names on their way out of the locker room.)

Why didn't Smith make the list? Because those are three categories Smith has never fallen into—and never will. He may belong on the list, but it's a list defined by excluding players like him.

Which is fitting for Smith, whose 13-year career has in turn been defined by snubs. Or, as former 49ers and current Skins teammate Vernon Davis calls them, scars.

CLIFFORD GRODIN/Associated Press

"You can tell by an individual's scars, right?" Davis told Kareem Copeland of the Washington Post early in June. "Based on their scars, that's how they're able to be successful. That's why they're successful, based on the scars that they have. Alex has been through so much. So many ups and downs. So many scars."

Not every successful person is battle-scarred, and not everyone who faces great adversity manages to overcome it. But while we may question Smith's likelihood of leading Washington to a Super Bowl or the precise strengths and weaknesses on his scouting report, no one can question his resilience.

Smith got stuck playing for try-hard, old-school defensive coaches early in his career. Mike Nolan was such a wannabe throwback that he wore a suit on the sideline, for heaven's sake. Nolan believed manly NFL quarterbacks should play through serious shoulder injuries. In 2007 Smith, then an ailing 23-year-old, took his case to the press, which is the only sin more mortal than not gutting through debilitating pain for a Mr. Throwback coach. He lost most of two seasons under Nolan to surgery and controversies.

Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images

Then the 49ers promoted Mike Singletary to replace Nolan, because everyone knows the best way to nurture a fading quarterback prospect is to get even more old-fashioned and defense-oriented. Singletary benched Smith in favor of journeyman Shaun Hill at the start of 2009. He threatened to bench Smith for David Carr in 2010, leading to a sideline dustup. He eventually benched Alex Smith for Troy Smith. Then Troy Smith got into a sideline dustup with Singletary, and the 49ers finally figured out their problem wasn't Alex Smith but an organizational obsession with Landry Lite and Diet Ditka head coaches.

Smith finally enjoyed fleeting success for a few seasons until Jim Harbaugh decided to replace him with Colin Kaepernick in 2012. We could debate the long-term wisdom of that decision, but there are already enough issues dividing us as a nation. With Kaepernick in ascendance, Smith was traded to the Chiefs, where he became the quarterback who took too many sacks (until he didn't), couldn't throw deep (until he could) and couldn't win the big game in the playoffs (in the AFC, where no one but Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger can).

That's a lot of scars. Most young quarterbacks would have been tossed into the bust bin after squabbling with their second straight head coach. Smith persevered. When you spend your early career getting benched for every rando who hollers louder than you during practice, getting left off a meaningless Top 100 list is no big whoop.

The switch from Cousins to Smith in Washington looks like a lateral move until you factor in the scars. Whatever happened between Cousins and the organization—and the Skins have a storied history of self-inflicted quarterback drama—Cousins began to look like the guy who was at his best when it mattered least, and someone who was better at maximizing his earning potential than his football potential.

Charlie Riedel/Associated Press

Cousins was, and still is, the quarterback who is going to prove what he can do next year. Smith has been proving himself since 2011. But what he has proved is that he will never fit the superstar quarterback prototype in an era obsessed with quarterback superstardom.

Smith is above-average. That makes him incredibly valuable, but his value is hard to express because all the language we use to describe quarterbacks is loaded. "Average" is a slur. "Elite" is snide metacommentary. We create Top 10 and Top 100 lists as if those arbitrary round-number cutoffs count for anything and then take note of the players who are left off.

David Carr—once Alex Smith's rival for Singletary's approbation, now an NFL.com analyst—just published a quarterback Top 10 list. Smith did not make that list either. Nor did Cousins, Carson Wentz or Ben Freakin' Roethlisberger, whom Carr stopped just short of calling a product of the system (another loaded phrase). Jimmy Garoppolo did crack Carr's list, as did Carr's kid brother (fourth!). The list looks like it was compiled with all of the probing research of the typical player's Top 100 ballot. This is offseason content, after all.

That's not to say Smith belongs on a current quarterback Top 10 list. He doesn't, and the point is that it doesn't matter. He's accurate, mobile, decisive, durable, consistent, experienced and does all of the little game-manager stuff we are reluctant to talk about because "game manager" is yet another loaded phrase. He's not a Garoppolo or Case Keenum, cracking Top Whatever lists after a few good games. Smith has been Smith for so long that his coaches can bank on his above-averageness.

Above-average quarterbacks sometimes win Super Bowls. It happens more often than you may think, because when above-average quarterbacks do win they are retroactively awarded greatness and their early-career scars are romanticized.

Smith may not lead Washington to a Super Bowl, because the team around him isn't spectacular, but it's a testament to his uniqueness that he'll get a legitimate chance with a third team.

A decade after some old-school coaches did everything they could to bury him, Alex Smith is one of the 100 best players in the NFL. Probably.

That's not a left-handed compliment. It's a remarkable achievement.

Mike Tanier covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @MikeTanier.