The Pittsburgh Steelers capped off a busy Trade Deadline Tuesday by acquiring edge rusher Preston Smith from the Green Bay Packers. You may have heard he has 68.5 career sacks in 155 regular-season games. But what else should you know?
Three-Sport Kid Thanks To His Mom
When Smith was growing up, he wasn’t a football-only kid. And that’s a good thing. From a talent perspective, year-round specialization in one sport as a kid has gone the way of the dinosaur. More people are realizing that a diverse background in sports is good for athletes.
It’s also good for their moms, too. Smith’s mom encouraged him to play multiple sports, and he played basketball and baseball alongside football.
“My mom was trying to keep us active,” said Smith per commanders.com. “Have a lot of dimensions to our life, not being a one-sport athlete, playing a lot of sports and just having a lot of different athletic ability.”
And if Smith’s career is any proof, maybe more parents should encourage their kids to try more sports, too.
Stephenson High School, NFL Pipeline?
Smith played football for the Stephenson High School Jaguars. The football team isn’t one that’s been around for quite a while as they started playing football in 1996. But in that relatively short time, they’ve produced 18 football players that at least had a cup of coffee in the NFL. Preston Smith has played more NFL games than any other Stephenson High School graduate. However, the player with the second-most games from the Jaguars is a former teammate of Smith’s new QB Russell Wilson. Bruce Irvin may have only played part of his high school career at Stephenson, but the connection is there.
Also, three years after Smith graduated high school, current Chicago Bears DE Montez Sweat graduated from Stephenson.
Dominant Senior Season At Mississippi State
Smith was a three-star prospect coming out of Stephenson High School in Stone Mountain, Georgia. And he showed an ability to make plays for the Bulldogs earlier in his college career. He had 5.5 tackles for a loss and 4.5 sacks his sophomore season. But as a senior, Smith had a standout season for which SEC coaches named him First-Team All-SEC and the Associated Press named him Second-Team All-SEC. He even became the first defensive lineman in conference history to be named Defensive Lineman of the Week three weeks in a row.
Just how good was Smith? He had 48 total tackles, 15 tackles for a loss, nine sacks, two interceptions (including a pick-six), nine passes knocked down, five forced fumbles, and one fumble recovery. He also blocked two kicks on special teams.
That’s a darn good way to cap off a college career.
A Veritable Ironman In The NFL
Washington drafted Smith in the second round of the 2015 NFL Draft. Since that moment, Smith has played in 10 NFL seasons. He’s missed exactly one game in that time. And depending on who you talk to, Smith only missed that Week 7 game just to make sure his oblique injury would be good to go the following week.
“My body is my investment,” said Smith in an interview with Larry McCarren for Total Packers: 1-on-1 on packers.com. “It got me to this point, it got me everything I wanted in life.”
It’s a remarkable achievement for anyone to have played in 155 regular-season games in 10 seasons. Yet even as Smith approaches his 32nd birthday on Nov. 17, he’s still going strong and not showing any signs of wearing down. Not bad at all for a player seeking his fourth-straight season of eight-plus sacks.
He’s Sacked Russell Wilson In The Playoffs
Smith has 68.5 sacks in 155 regular-season games, but he’s also played in eight playoff games and added 4.5 sacks in that timeframe.
And two of those sacks came in the same game in 2019, a 28-23 win over the Seattle Seahawks and Smith’s new QB. You can see those sacks in the NFL’s video highlighting Smith as the 63rd player in the Top 100 list for 2020.
The most important of the two sacks came on a third-and-five play with only 3:19 left. The Packers were nursing a 28-23 lead but the Seahawks were threatening. Yet somehow Smith ended up one-on-one with a Seahawks tight end and blew right by him to bring Wilson down.
I’m sure Wilson is relieved that Smith is on the same team rather than chasing him down.
