Former 49ers QB Alex Smith joins ESPN as analyst

Alex Smith retired this spring from playing football, but he will still be on football fans’ televisions this fall.

ESPN announced Monday that the former 49ers quarterback is joining the network as an NFL analyst prior to the season, which opens next month. Smith will appear on SportsCenter, Monday Night Football and Sunday NFL Countdown, the network said in a release.

“When I announced my retirement in April, I knew I was walking away from the playing field, but was not walking away from the game,” Smith said in a statement from ESPN. “This opportunity with ESPN surrounds me with new teammates and provides a fresh challenge as my family and I begin the next phase of our life.”

Smith has worked with ESPN before, when the network documented his year-plus return from a gruesome compound leg fracture for an episode of the show “E:60” that was titled “Project 11”. Smith’s rehab and recovery from the injury — which nearly cost him his leg and required 17 surgeries — earned him the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year award last season with the Washington Football Team, as he stepped in as the team’s starter and went 5-1 en route to an NFC East divisional title.

The former No. 1 overall pick out of Utah spent the first eight years of his career with the 49ers, toiling on non-contending teams until 2011, when he helped lead San Francisco to a 13-3 record and an NFC Championship berth. In Week 10 of another strong 2012 season, Smith suffered a concussion that opened the door for a young Colin Kaepernick to take over the starting role from him on the path to a Super Bowl appearance.

That offseason, the Niners traded him to Kansas City, where he helped lead the Chiefs to four playoff appearances in five years before being traded to make way for young superstar Patrick Mahomes. Smith landed in Washington, where he spent the final three years of his career, including the 2019 season he missed with his leg injury.