Alex Smith’s wife had his leg brace made into a Lombardi Trophy, locks up Spouse of the Year in January

One of our most-read stories of 2020 was “Graphic new images of Alex Smith's leg injury prove he is the toughest SOB in football.” Partly because you guys are a bunch of sickos who couldn’t help but stare at probably the single grossest sports injury ever until your eyeballs fell out, and partly because everybody likes a good comeback story. And come back Alex Smith did. After nearly losing his life, let alone his leg, Alex Smith fought his way up the Washington Football Team depth chart in 2020 (more of a war of attrition, but still), and is now poised to start an actual NFL playoff game for the first time since his horrific injury.

Yet somehow that isn’t the biggest Alex Smith-related story surfing the interweb today. That honor belongs instead to Smith’s wife Liz, who, in a fit of nerves before Sunday night’s pivotal NFC East matchup, posted a little piece of home decor to her Instagram as a reminder of how far they had come and how many Ws they had racked up along the way. Take it away, Liz.

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If that looks familiar to you, that's because it probably is. At least sort of. That's Smith's leg brace broken down and reforged into a symbolic Lombardi Trophy, and it’s exactly as incredible as it sounds. Granted, it’s probably as close as Smith will ever get to the Lombardi Trophy, but that shouldn’t diminish a single thing about his seemingly impossible recovery. As Liz points out, in light of everything the Smiths have been through over the course of the past three years, football is just gravy.

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Following Liz's post, the Washington Football Team would go on to defeat the Eagles, clinching the NFC East and their spot in next weekend’s Wild Card round, a tough matchup against Tom Brady’s Bucs. Smith has been battling a calf strain in his right leg, complicated by the fact half of that calf was used in a graft to save his left leg back in 2018, but if he can tough it out for one more week, you’d be an idiot to bet against him.