Alex Smith says 49ers' roster shake-up was inevitable

Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith predicted this summer's mass exodus from the San Francisco 49ers, knowing a time would come when the team could no longer afford to cram so many star players under the salary cap.

Smith, selected first overall by the 49ers in 2005, commented Tuesday on the 49ers' tumultuous offseason, when a cavalcade of players left San Francisco for retirement and free agency.

"I knew, for sure, some of those defensive players we wouldn't be able to keep around, just contract-wise and years-wise, like Dashon (Goldson) and Justin (Smith)," the QB told Cam Inman of the Bay Area News Group.

"You knew some of that wasn't going to last forever. We weren't going to be able to hold it altogether from a cap standpoint and the years standpoint. You knew that was going to change."

Smith was traded to the Chiefs in 2013, in large part due to then-head coach Jim Harbaugh's preference for dual-threat quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

In his first season with the Chiefs, Smith proved worth the gamble, steering the club to the playoffs after going a league-worst 2-14 the year before.

Entering his third year with Kansas City, Smith spoke positively of Harbaugh, who in turn departed for the University of Michigan after reaching a mutual release with the 49ers at the end of the year.

"That's the thing I really appreciated about him: he had such a good understanding of the minutia that can be back there, and you're trying to sort it out and make good decisions," Smith said of Harbaugh. "You do control so much. You have the ball in your hands, and you can change the game like that, good and bad.

"It's a lot of responsibility, and it's not always clear. He did a good job trying to coach through all that and all the different scenarios."

Going into the 2015 season, Smith is tasked with fixing a Chiefs receiving group that failed to record a touchdown grab last season.