After the San Francisco 49ers went 6-10 during the 2010 season, firing Coach Mike Singletary along the way, Alex Smith was clearly ready to move on.

The 2005 first-overall pick was talking in the locker room with a reporter from the San Jose Mercury News who asked him if he could see himself coming back for a seventh season in San Francisco.

His response, according to this story, was: “Are you being serious? … Uh, no.”

Smith had missed games due to injury, been benched and had often been turned into the scapegoat – often deservedly – for the 49ers’ inability to bring back the glory days of the 1980s and 1990s, when Joe Montana, Steve Young and, to a lesser degree, Jeff Garcia were slinging the pigskin around whatever Candlestick Park is now called.

Then the team lured Jim Harbaugh from Stanford to replace Singletary. Then came the NFL Lockout. And then came whisperings that, despite taking Colin Kaepernick in the second round of the 2011 draft last April, Harbaugh and the 49ers wanted Smith back, even if it was to serve as a one-year mentor.

The lockout sandwiched free agency and training camp into a short period of time this season with more guys than usual staying on their previous teams. While Zoneblitz.com writers figured continuity would be a key for teams experiencing success in 2011, it was also stated here on this blog that Harbaugh likely wanted Smith back this season as part of a strategy aimed at tanking the season and grabbing Andrew Luck as his quarterback of the future.

I’ve rarely been more wrong.

Now, let’s be real. Smith has not suddenly become the second-coming of Montana or Young. Nor has he matched Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Tom Brady or any of the truly elite-level quarterbacks that led some of the offensive juggernauts in 2011.

He doesn’t have that same skills those guys have – and with Frank Gore and the amazing 49ers defense he rarely needs them. But he has quietly been downright great this year. He started all 16 games and threw for 3,144 yards during the regular season. He posted a 90.7 rating while throwing 17 touchdowns against just five picks, leading the team to a 13-3 record.

And then, on Saturday, when it looked as though San Francisco’s defense was finally going to slip up and get into a fatal shootout with New Orleans, Smith came up big with quite possibly the best quarter of football he has ever played … it’s easily the best I have ever seen him.
By now you’ve probably seen it. The 49ers had just fallen behind 24-23 and they faced a 3rd-and-8 with just over a couple minutes left. Smith took the snap and sprinted around the end, not stopping at a first down, but taking it all the way.

When less than a minute later, New Orleans scored to take the lead again, Smith carved up the Saints’ defense one more time, hitting Vernon Davis – who also was a monster – for a 14-yard touchdown. And thus, the best, most entertaining game I remember watching in a long, long time, was over.

It didn’t occur to me until later how close this game probably came to not happening. Had the offseason proceeded the way it normally does, Smith probably would have followed through on his plans to go elsewhere and it likely would have been Kaepernick or some other veteran leading the Niners this season. Does a new quarterback get off to a 9-1 start? It’s hard to say. That San Francisco defense is legitimately good – good enough to keep that team in any game they play.

But after six years of ups and downs, it’s certain that it would be almost impossible to feel better for a guy than fans should for Smith.

Smith has his shortcomings as a player and he’ll probably never be the superstar one is expected to be when taken at the top of the draft. But he can be the very solid field general who does more than just manage games.

It’s been written that no matter how much criticism he has taken, no matter how badly the team has performed and no matter what kind of heat Smith has taken from fans and the media over his first six years with the team, he has always handled his role with class.

That would seem to be illustrated by the scene set in Sports Illustrated this week by Peter King, who wrote of tackle Joe Staley – who made one of the key blocks on Smith’s touchdown run – finding the quarterback in the locker room, hugging him and telling him he deserved the moment. Smith clearly has the support of his teammates and, perhaps most importantly after seven years in the league, his coach.

And he has one of the most memorable moments from one of the most memorable games this league has produced in recent years. It’s a helluva story and good for him. I still think the NFL Lockout was little more than a pathetic illustration of the greed that permeates professional sports these days. But in San Francisco, it may have saved the season.