Should Washington Exit, Or Embrace, QB Alex Smith?

There's no shortage of options and we'll turn over every one of them until we have clarity from the Washington Football Team.

ASHBURN, Va. -- Over the next few months, you will see plenty of possible scenarios for the Washington Football Team at quarterback ... until they pull the trigger on someone notable.

And one of those triggers can be an incumbent.

Will Alex Smith be back? We might suggest, "Not at a cap number of more than $23 million'' ... and maybe not at all.

Taylor Heinicke is a restricted free agent and Kyle Allen is an exclusive rights free agent. What are the plans there?

Coach Ron Rivera has made it clear. They are exploring all options.

On Thursday morning - Rivera joined our colleague Kevin Sheehan on the TEAM 980 and Radio.com.

When Rivera was asked by Sheehan about the chances of Alex Smith returning in 2021, the head coach said "I think that, you know, the chances are there."

So Rivera didn't rule out the idea ... but certainly didn't give it a ringing endorsement. This has been pretty much the stock answer for Rivera on Smith - and we'd say it's the coach's truth, as well.

Smith has a $18.75 million non-guaranteed base salary in 2021 per OvertheCap.com.

He has a $4.3 million cap proration that Washington is stuck with no matter what. If they cut Smith, they could designate him as a post-June 1 transaction and pay only $4.3 million in dead money this year and the same next year. They would be also saving the $18.75 million base, so they would actually gain over $18 million in cap space.

Or they could take the full $8.6 million cap hit this year and save about $15 million in cap space this year and clear both a $25 million cap charge in 2022 and a potential dead cap charge of $4.3 million

The other option for Smith and Washington is for Smith to take a pay cut of approximately $15 million in base salary. That would dramatically lower his cap number in 2021 to a much more manageable handle.

If they keep Smith and bypass making a trade for another veteran quarterback, or sign one in free agency, we think the likelihood of trading up in the first-round from No. 19 increases.

A question that must be asked is this: If you're willing to surrender quality assets in the draft for an unproven rookie quarterback, surely you should be willing to do the same for a veteran quarterback. ... right?

Sam Darnold? Derek Carr? Deshaun Watson?

There's no shortage of options if you let Smith go. If you keep him, even under a dramatically reduced salary - you have to bank on him being better and healthier than Darnold, Carr, Watson, Marcus Mariota, Mitchell Trubisky, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Andy Dalton and others.

These are the lead options. There are also road blocks. The Washington Football Team has a decision to make. Now they just have to shoot their shot. And the shot needs to be dead-on.