Washington quarterback Alex Smith, who endured a staggering tibia and fibula break in 2018, has gotten leeway from his surgical team to come back to full football action.
Smith, who addressed ESPN while filming an update for his E:60 narrative, “Project 11,” is experiencing COVID-19 testing and hopes to report Monday to the team’s facility, where he will experience a team physical.
Once there, the team is required to decide the next steps for Smith’s inevitable participation in training camp.
Smith and his family spent the previous few months in Hawaii, where he kept on train and get ready for the coming season. While he could detect that he was proceeding to advance the extent that his strength, conditioning and agility were concerned, he said it was inconceivable for him to know exactly how well the bones in his correct leg were recuperating.
With an end goal to address that question, Smith experienced another round of imaging, including X-rays and a CT scan, after getting back to Washington. His group of specialists – including orthopedic trauma surgeons Steve Malekzadeh and Michael Holtzman, plastic surgeon Vineet Mehan and head Washington team doctor Robin West, as well as Dr. Joe Alderete from the Center for the Intrepid (who served as an advisor all through Smith’s post-operative consideration) – talked about the imaging results before meeting with Smith and his wife, Elizabeth, to share their discoveries.
“Everyone was in agreement that my bone was in a really good place,” Smith told ESPN on Friday. “I had healed a lot. They said that given the combination of the rod and where I was with the healing process, I had zero limitations and could even resume some football activities.
“To hear them say that, from a life standpoint, they wouldn’t restrict me from doing anything — I could go skiing or snowboarding tomorrow if I wanted — then on top of that, to get the green light that I could practice, get contact, that I had healed up, that much was pretty wild to hear. I didn’t know if I would ever hear those words.”
The 36-year-old Smith, whose agreement goes through 2022, recognized this is only the initial step, though a critical one, during the time spent attempting to come back to football.
“For me, all eyes are on practice,” Smith said. “That’s the next step. I have to go prove to myself and certainly to everybody else that I can go practice.”
Smith likewise addressed current issues the Washington establishment is confronting, among them the group’s commitment to rebranding in the wake of dropping its nickname.
“As football players, you sign up to play football, you love it and everything that comes with it,” he said, “but the logo you wear on the side of your helmet, the name on the front of your jersey, it is a part of it. So I’m really proud of the organization for making a change, as I think all my teammates are. I am excited about new beginnings, excited about the new coaching staff, getting back to winning ways. But as I said, I’m proud of the organization for making the change.”
He additionally said he was “embarrassed” and “disgusted” by the recent Washington Post report around 15 ladies who blamed team officials for inappropriate behavior.
“We’re football players and out on the field, but there are a lot of parts of the building that go into game day and a season and the whole business side of the building, and to hear that some of this had been going on, I certainly don’t think players ever knew about it. But it’s not something any of us are proud of, and it needs to be changed,” Smith said. “I have a wife, a daughter, two sisters, and to ever think about something like that happening to them disgusts me and pisses me off; so hopefully, we get to where we need to be — an environment and a culture that’s acceptable for everybody and lets everybody thrive and is safe for everybody.”
