49ers, QB Smith restructure deal

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Quarterback Alex Smith easily could have started over with another team. Instead, he’s determined to finish what he started in San Francisco.

The former No. 1 pick is staying with the 49ers after agreeing Tuesday to a restructured contract sharply reducing his base salary.

Smith was due to make nearly $10 million in the upcoming season under the deal he signed in 2005. The 49ers now have Smith under contract for the next two years at a salary more commensurate with his four up-and-down years with the club.

“I don’t measure myself in my contract in terms of what I’m making,” said Smith, who missed most of the past two seasons with arm injuries. “Having gone through what I’ve gone through the last couple of years, and being on the sideline, I guess I’ve got a different perspective on this game. When it came time to restructure the contract, it wasn’t anything to do with ego. I just wanted the chance to compete.”

Smith hasn’t been fully healthy since shortly after a promising 2006 season during which he took every snap for the 49ers. His shoulder problems, which began with a sack early in the 2007 campaign, stoked a periodic feud with former coach Mike Nolan and seriously hampered both men’s careers.

Smith, whose honeymoon in the Maldives delayed negotiations on his new deal, still thinks he can live up to the promise that compelled the 49ers to choose him at the top of the notoriously flimsy 2005 draft ahead of Aaron Rodgers, Braylon Edwards, DeMarcus Ware and Shawne Merriman.

“Alex expressed a deep interest to remain with the team, and that feeling was mutual,” said 49ers general manager Scot McCloughan, a longtime Smith supporter who acknowledged he would have been forced to release the quarterback before training camp without a reworked deal.