Guest columnist John Kinsley breaks down the tape of every deep pass in the NFL in 2017 and comes away with a shocking conclusion: even without Andrew Luck, the Colts had the best long-ball quarterback in the league.
It has been no secret that Alex Smith's career, for the most part, has been defined by his safe style of playing quarterback. Football Outsiders' Scott Kacsmar even named a specific statistic after Smith, measuring how aggressive or conservative quarterbacks were on third down.
But something changed in 2017. Suddenly, Smith was throwing the ball downfield more consistently.