Alex Smith and Jay Gruden: A match made in boot-action heaven?

When the Chiefs traded up in the first round of the 2017 NFL Draft to select Patrick Mahomes, it signaled to many that the Alex Smith era in Kansas City was coming to an end. Still, with the rookie gunslinger watching from the sidelines, Smith posted a career season, including career highs in passing yardage (4,042), adjusted yards per attempt (8.6), passer rating (104.7), and interception percentage (1.0 percent). The end did finally come this spring, as the Chiefs traded Smith to the Washington Redskins to make way for Mahomes.

One reason for Smith's successful campaign was coach Andy Reid's willingness to dive into his quarterback's playbooks from the University of Utah. On opening night, the Chiefs throttled the New England Patriots 42-27, and in doing so, they rolled out a number of designs fans are more used to seeing on Saturday afternoons than in an NFL game: a dizzying array of motions, formations, shifting, options, read-option plays, and even the shovel pass/inverted veer look. After the game, Reid explained: "One of the things we did when Alex came here was we went back and kind of looked at some of the stuff he had done in college and was familiar with."

Smith now finds himself in Washington, learning a new system under Jay Gruden. However, it may not be a completely unfamiliar setup - and if Gruden is wise, it won't be, though he may not have to look all the way back to Smith's college career. Not only does Gruden's offensive system thrive on the use of play-action passing concepts, as well as boot-action concepts that roll the quarterback to one side of the field or the other, Smith is one of the league's best play-action passers, and has lots of experience with boot action from his tenure with the San Francisco 49ers.

Washington only ran play action on 21 percent of passing plays, but the statistics suggest Gruden should have gone to it more often. Washington averaged 8.7 yards per play-action passing attempt in 2017, fourth-best in the NFL, and it made quarterback Kirk Cousins a totally different passer, going from an average 7.1 yards per attempt on other types of plays to 9.4 yards per attempt on play action. Football Outsiders determined that Washington improved its defense-adjusted value over average (DVOA) by 48.7 percent on passing plays when they used play action.

Gruden has a particular affection for the boot-action game, which makes sense considering the team's running attack is heavy on outside-zone and stretch-run concepts. An offense can run that over and over at a defense, and then have the quarterback keep the ball and boot, or roll, to the other side of the formation and scan for receivers downfield. Here's one of the more common boot-action concepts (we'll even see Smith in a similar situation later):

Cousins begins the play under center, and the offense fakes a stretch run to the left edge. Cousins then reverses field to the right and rolls in that direction. He has a receiver in the flat, a deep comeback route, and a crossing route coming from the left to choose from. Washington also incorporates a deep post route from the left side, which can occupy the safety and free up the crossing route underneath.

So that's a glimpse of Gruden's boot-action playbook with Cousins. Now, the coach has Smith instead. Last season, the veteran completed 75 percent of his passes on play-action plays - the best mark in the league. His passer rating on play-action passes was 103.8, up from an already impressive 92.4 on other throws.

Before the emergence of Colin Kaepernick, and before pulling on a Chiefs jersey, Smith enjoyed a great deal of success as San Francisco's starting quarterback. In 2012, head coach Jim Harbaugh and the 49ers got out to a 6-2 start, and Smith was playing at an extremely high level. Looking at some of those games to get a feel for his play and San Francisco's schemes, it's clear the team used boot-action concepts to get Smith on the move and create options for him on the edge as a runner or downfield as a passer.

On this play against the Detroit Lions from Week 2 of that season, Smith aligns under center with two receivers split to the right and two backs in the backfield. The 49ers show a running play to the left edge, but Smith keeps the ball and rolls back to the right, where he has three routes to choose from: a deep corner route, an intermediate out route, and his fullback in the flat. All three are open, but Smith takes the intermediate route for an easy gain. He's an athletic quarterback who throws well on the move, so designs like this play to some of his strengths as a passer.

Later in the contest, the 49ers dialed up another boot concept, and Vernon Davis iced the game on this 23-yard catch-and-run touchdown.

Here, San Francisco again faked a run to the left and relied on Smith and his athleticism to get the edge. He evaded a defender in the backfield before floating a pass to Davis, who did the rest.

A week later, the 49ers traveled to Minnesota to take on the Vikings, and boot-action concepts remained a big part of the game plan. In this example, Smith again rolls to his right with a deep corner route and a flat route to choose from. The 49ers give him a third option by bringing a crossing route from left to right.

This play closely mirrors the first boot-action example we saw here from Gruden and Cousins in 2017. The design stresses the defense with lateral movement that stretches it from sideline to sideline, plus the fake and misdirection. Smith could have thrown any of the three routes available to him, but he opted for the safe, easy throw in the flat.

Later in the game, the Niners opened a drive with another boot-action design that ended in another easy throw to the flat:

Cousins and Smith show that this design isn't limited to throws to the flats. Here is Cousins rolling to his left last season to throw a deep corner route under tremendous duress (the receiver, coincidentally, is Vernon Davis):

And here's Smith delivering on a deep comeback route in a 2012 blowout victory over the Buffalo Bills:

The timing of this play and throw is perfect. Smith releases the pass well before wide receiver Kyle Williams makes his break, so the ball arrives just as Williams comes out of his cut. That enables him to put a move on the defender, evade the tackle attempt, and dance into the end zone with six points.

Coming off a career season, Smith arrives in Washington to work with a coach whose offense has already succeeded with boot-action concepts - schemes that play to some of Smith's existing strengths. Gruden and his staff would be well-served by looking through Smith's 49ers playbooks to incorporate some of these boot-action designs in 2018, setting Smith up for a second straight campaign where revisiting the past leads to success in the present.

Copyright (C) 2018 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.