Alex Smith started off “Thursday Night Football” against the Raiders pretty hot, and there apparently is good reason for that.
According to the NBC announcing team of Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth, Smith entered the game against the Oakland Raiders with a chip on his shoulder over Jack Del Rio’s comments following the last game between the teams.
After the Chiefs beat the Raiders 26-10 in October, Del Rio gave some backhanded compliments to Smith.
“Good football player, (a) little underrated,” Del Rio said of Smith. “If he’s got to rely on throwing the ball, it’s really not his strong suit. But if you allow them to run the ball, do some of their gimmicky things, then he comes to life. That’s what they were able to do today.”
Del Rio saying Smith can’t really rely on throwing the ball bothered the QB. When Collinsworth and Michaels asked Smith about it during their meeting in the days before the game, the Chiefs QB had a strong reaction.
“We were talking to him and he got a little fired up about that,”Collinsworth noted. “[Smith] said, ‘that’s kind of making excuses for a loss. We won that game big and in a physical way. It was disrespectful to our team, it was disrespectful for me.’ And you could tell Alex Smith was a little fired up walking out the door.”
Collinsworth went on about Smith.
“He also said, ‘I noticed Jack Del Rio threw a touchdown pass to a tackle in the next game, so gimmicky goes around a little bit.'”
And what do you know? Smith came out throwing in the first half Thursday and was 11 of 16 for 202 yards and a long touchdown pass at the time Collinsworth made his comments.
Maybe Del Rio saying what he said wasn’t the smartest thing he’s done.
