Steve Young on whether Alex Smith should be a Pro Bowl alternate: “It’s just fun to talk about Alex in these terms.”

Eric Byrnes asked Steve Young Wednesday on KNBR if Alex Smith should be a Pro Bowl quarterback.

Here’s what Young said.

Q: Should Alex Smith have been a Pro Bowl quarterback? Or if someone fell out – Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees or Eli Manning – should Alex Smith take his place?

YOUNG: “Emotionally I’m attached to Alex and what he’s done this year. The story is so great. If I would have told you at the beginning of the season that Alex Smith would be a Pro Bowler. There’s no…He’s done exactly what Jim Harbaugh’s asked him to do, perfectly, in so many ways. He’s never lost a game – not a lot of quarterbacks can say that, that they didn’t lose a game at sometime during the year, that they were kind of responsible for. And then he’s expanded, he’s done more the last few weeks where he’s started to be the reason that they won. That’s a big change for him.

“So emotionally I want to say Alex, and I think you can make the argument, which is a big statement for Alex. Granted, Cam Newton is electrifying and Matthew Stafford did more, but I just want to appreciate…it’s just fun to talk about Alex in these terms, to appreciate him for what he’s gone through and the emotional and mental fortitude that he had to resign.

“I talked to him – I want to say in February briefly. He called me and he said, “I’m thinking about this or that,” and I said, “Just know that if you go back you’re going to really have to strap it on, you’re going to really have to take the heat.” And I think he saw Jim and he saw the opportunity and he said, “I don’t really care, I want to take it on.” And good for him, and I guess that’s part of me just appreciating his willingness to chance that, to face that. To me that’s something worth talking about. So it’s the Pro Bowl today and that’s the only context I have to talk about this kind of thing, so I’m going to take advantage of it and say Alex Smith.”

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