Alex Smith

“I don't feel like I have to prove myself to anybody any longer.”

“I don't really care how many yards I throw for; as long as we score more points than the guys we're playing.”

“At the combine and at my workouts, I tried to be the perfect player. I tried to promote my strengths and conceal my weaknesses, and on paper, I kind of succeeded: I was the first pick in the draft. And with that, I inherited this big shiny trophy that I carried around, and it had one word engraved on it - anxiety.”

“There is a strike zone in the pocket that's very clear. Can't hit QBs low, can't hit them high.”

“I'm going to play for me and not play for anyone else except my teammates and the guys that matter.”

“You're the quarterback, if you lose games... it's the head coach and the quarterback. If you're not winning, it's on you.”

“I put a lot of pressure on myself. Sometimes you are your own worst enemy.”

“You're frustrated when things aren't going right. When you're out there, you have your piece of it, your view. It isn't until usually the next day when you're watching the film that you get to put all the pieces together: 'Oh, this is what happened on that play'; 'This is why I did that.' You don't totally know that game day.”

“That's the great thing about the NFL: A team can get hot and win a championship.”

“When I got drafted, I was a spread-option quarterback. It was, 'OK, you've got to get under center, throw to the fullback, throw to the tight end. You've got to learn to be a pro quarterback.' And there was a learning curve there, and I did have to learn some of that.”

“Game day can be emotional, and there are a lot of ups and downs throughout a game, but as a quarterback, you have to be able to see the bigger picture, steady that ship, get all the guys focused in on the task at hand, and keep the thing moving.”

“Dead silence is so much more foreign to me than people screaming at me, good or bad.”

“As a quarterback, you certainly don't want to hamstring your team in any way because - I know this more than anyone - you rely so heavily on those playmakers around you.”

“To a lot of people, I might just be the guy who went No. 1 in the draft. Or the guy who lost his job to Colin Kaepernick. Or the guy who helped turn a 2-14 Chiefs team into a back-to-back division champ... but then couldn't put them over the top.”

“When I graduated from Utah, I was headed into the biggest job interview of my life, the NFL Draft.”

“As a quarterback, especially when I come off to the sideline, I am trying to get things corrected, trying to get things figured out and move on to the next series.”

“Utah will always be special to me. They were the school that gave me an opportunity, and I grew so much as a person and player there.”

“We can never fully plan our future, so don't try.”

“It's easy when you're always winning.”

“Embrace the new, no matter how uncomfortable, and make it work for you.”