Unimaginable pressure comes with being the No. 1 overall pick

Alex Smith is finally having the season many expected him to have coming out of college.

The San Francisco 49ers made the Utah quarterback the first pick in the 2005 NFL draft –selected higher than Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers. Smith underwent a ton of scrutiny through five mediocre years. He threw 51 touchdown passes in his first five seasons – Rodgers has 45 this season alone – with 43 interceptions and zero playoff appearances.

Smith said he tried too hard to validate his selection as the top overall pick and that he has trouble trying to describe the pressure that comes with being the first player taken in the draft.

“It’s something that is hard to even put into words,” Smith told myself and one other St. Louis reporter via teleconference on Wednesday. “You go through such scrutiny going through all the workouts and the combine and it’s such an ordeal. You work so hard to compete through those and then all of the sudden you are the No. 1 pick and people forget that basically the next day you are going to work, and it’s not like you have been off that whole time, you just continue to work. When you are the No. 1 pick, all eyes are on you. It’s strange that even all of your teammates look at you, they’re always watching you, every guy is always watching your movements.

“Sometimes I think if you start thinking about that, especially as a quarterback, it can affect your play. If you’re trying to not screw up, trying not to make the mistakes, sometimes that can become a bad thing. Instead of just going out and playing and cutting the ball loose and playing football, you can get caught up with people watching you and your quarterback rating and what people are saying and this and that. There’s a lot of distractions and I think one of the toughest things is just having the mental character and makeup to get all of that crap out of your head and just play football."

As Sam Bradford – who the St. Louis Rams took with the top pick in 2010 – is finding out, it’s not easy to live up to that billing.

“I think every No. 1 pick tries to, all top picks but especially No. 1, you are trying to validate it with every single play,” Smith said. “I know I did for a few years.

“Every single play I tried to validate it, so you are constantly trying to throw into the tight windows, make the big throws, and do everything yourself instead of letting the team and letting the system work for you and really just distributing the football. That’s your job, just distribute the football and make good decisions and then let those plays come to you. Instead, especially me as a young player, I just found myself forcing them and I think that’s the mistake a lot of early draft pick quarterbacks do.”

Many thought new San Francisco head coach Jim Harbaugh would cut ties with Smith and bring in a quarterback of his own choosing. But Harbaugh – a former NFL quarterback – stuck by Smith. 

The result is that the 49ers are 12-3, locked up the NFC West title weeks ago and Smith is having what Harbaugh has called a Pro Bowl season with a career-best 2,931 passing yards through 15 games with 16 touchdowns and only five interceptions. Rodgers, New Orleans' Drew Brees and New York's Eli Manning are the NFC quarterbacks for the Pro Bowl.

Bradford lifted the Rams from one win in 2009 to seven in 2010 as the Rams fell a game shy of winning the NFC West. He was named the NFL’s offensive rookie of the year after throwing for 3,512 yards with 18 touchdown passes and 15 interceptions and taking every snap. That’s a start Smith could only have dreamed of after he threw one touchdown pass with 11 interceptions in seven starts.

“It's tough,” Smith said. “No one understands that at the quarterback position you rely on so many people just to have a chance to do your job. Just from an outside perspective looking in, obviously (Bradford) had a really big rookie year. I think he did a lot of good things and then the expectations just continue to rise and a new system, the lockout, all of the injuries the Rams have had this year especially on the offensive side of the ball at the receiver position and offensive line, things like that, those are things that I think aren’t excuses, they’re facts, but no one really looks to that. No one wants to talk about that or hear that. A lot of times so many people just look at your stats and all of that stuff can be deceiving. So for him I still think just continue to work to get better every day. You’re going to get through this.

“The NFL is so much what have you done for me lately and just looking forward to the next game and putting that stuff behind you. I think for him, he’s such a young player in this league, he’s got such a long road ahead of him that if he just continues to work on becoming a better player he’ll be just fine.”

This year has been a reversal of fortune for both Bradford and Smith. Bradford suffered a high ankle sprain against Green Bay on Oct. 16 and has been nagged by it ever since. He’s missed five games already and will likely miss Sunday’s season finale against the 49ers at the Edward Jones Dome. Bradford has only six touchdown passes with six picks and has thrown for 2,164 yards.

This year has been a reversal of fortunes for both Bradford and Smith. The Rams have dipped to two wins and could own the top pick again in next year’s draft. Meanwhile the 49ers will be making their first playoff appearance since 2002. Smith said patience will be key for Bradford and said as long as the 2008 Heisman Trophy winner doesn’t start reading the message boards or listening to sports talk radio, he – and the Rams – should be OK.

“You learn that one real quick,” Smith joked about listening to sports talk. “It’s tough. Even look at Sam a year ago everybody is singing your praises and then a year later all of the sudden it’s not the same story. You learn how quickly things can change and obviously this is the most popular sport in America and it is that for a reason.

“Obviously, that’s a part of it. If you play quarterback you’re going to be under a lot of scrutiny, people are going to say a lot of things either way about you, so you better have some thick skin. If you don’t have thick skin you’re not going to make it very long in this league.”