There are a lot of peripheral things that you have to deal with in this league, and I dealt with a lot of them when I came in. It's everything from being on your own to facing the media.

I carried around a lot of weight and anxiety - expectations of being a top draft pick and fulfilling those. It was really burdensome and not fun. Stressful. I had to go through some things before I finally turned that around and got back to playing for the right reasons.

If you don't go out there and play winning football, they're going to try and find somebody who can.

Alex Smith Quotes