Alex Smith has truly been through hell and back.
The Washington Redskins quarterback hasn’t played a game since a gruesome leg injury against the Houston Texans in 2018. Since that time, he has had surgery and rehab to get him back to this point where he was recently seen on the practice field throwing passes.
According to Thom Loverro of the Washington Times, Smith told a group of medical professionals that he had 17 surgeries just to repair the damage to his leg.
“They said there was a “gasp” from the crowd when Smith revealed he had 17 surgeries on the broken leg, the person said.
The 17 surgeries is a dramatically different figure than the six the NFL Network reported in December. Those nearly half-dozen operations were reportedly part of an effort to remove tissue after Smith developed an infection following the operation he had to repair the broken fibula and tibia he suffered in that 23-21 loss to the Texans.
It is not known if all the operations that followed were related to the infections, though the absurd number of operations would indicate that the infections were severe.”
When the Redskins traded for Smith, they gave him a four-year, $94 million extension, but it is unclear if Smith will ever make it back to the field again, especially after the team drafted Dwayne Haskins in the first round to possibly be the QB of the future.
