Washington Football Team quarterback Alex Smith will miss Saturday's NFL playoff game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Taylor Heinicke will start in the must-win encounter instead.
Washington originally listed Smith as questionable, with a calf problem limiting him in practice Wednesday and Thursday.
Smith, 36, has had a remarkable year in one sense and a difficult one in another. The fact that he returned to football at all after suffering a devastating, and ultimately life-threatening, leg injury in 2018 is a minor miracle.
Not only that, but Smith ascended to the starting role after Dwayne Haskins' struggles—and release in late December—and Kyle Allen's season-ending ankle injury.