NFL Trade: Redskins agree to acquire Alex Smith
By Josh Hill
After hearing rumors of a possible trade for months, the Kansas City Chiefs will be sending Alex Smith to Washington.
There was a State of the Union speech in Washington on Tuesday, but the President had to take second billing to something bigger. Daniel Snyder stole some thunder on Capitol Hill by agreeing to acquire quarterback Alex Smith from the Kansas City Chiefs.
According to Terez Paylor from the Kansas City Star, the Chiefs have found a landing spot for Alex Smith — and that will be in Washington.
Right now it’s not clear what the compensation will be, and there won’t be anything official until well after the Super Bowl. It sounds like the Chiefs will be getting a third-round pick in the draft.
The #Chiefs traded QB Alex Smith to the #Redskins for a 2018 third-round pick and a player to be named tomorrow, sources say. Solid return, regardless of who the player is.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 31, 2018
The new league year doesn’t begin until March and that’s the earliest the trade can be made official. That doesn’t, however, mean the two teams can’t arrive at a deal beforehand. The structure of the trade can be in place before the league year starts, but no goods can exchange hands until then.
The Redskins aren’t likely to ship their first-round pick off the Kansas City for Smith, although it can’t be ruled out. Snyder has done crazier things and moving the No. 13 overall pick is a price he might want t pay. The more logical idea is that a quarterback will be drafted this year and will learn under Smith for the next few years.
For Kansas City, the trade opens up over $17 million to be used building the team around new starter Patrick Mahomes. The future is now for the Chiefs, as Mahomes will take over as the new starting quarterback for the team after a Week 17 audition against the Broncos won over scores of fans hoping he’d give them what they want. For the uninitiated, that’s a long-term franchise quarterback — something the Chiefs have never had.
The cash that Kansas City freed up by trading Smith will allow for a run at some of the top defensive players on the market. The idea of pairing Richard Sherman with Marcus Peters could be a reality, as are any number of defensive combinations that the front office can go to work trying to make happen.
An Alex Smith trade was seemingly always going to happen. Not many expected Washington to be where the story ended, but the NFL has never been a league known to be too predictable.