Steve Smith Sr on NFL longevity, defying physical disadvantages, former team-mates and the next generation
"Playing in the NFL gives you the chance to do something that life says you shouldn't be able to do. "
Thursday 11 May 2017 12:22, UK
Steve Smith Sr has been enjoying his retirement, and sitting down with Sky Sports' Neil Reynolds reflected on the demands of a 16-year NFL career.
How did you manage to play 16 seasons in the NFL?
I wish I knew the correct formula. I was always comfortable in what I didn't know and I was always trying to seek an answer to what I didn't know. I would do that through learning and through other individuals who were willing to teach me. For that to happen, I had to be teachable and willing to listen. You need to have luck.
How pressurised was the environment?
Every year throughout my career, we would go into training camp with 10 or 11 wide receivers - some are repeated and some are different. 16 x 10, that's 160 guys who have come and gone in those rooms and I was that guy for 16 years.
I've seen a lot of guys come and go. I've seen guys play for two or three years and then they have been out of the game, doing regular jobs and football is long forgotten.
It is a very competitive job. For those who play, it is our livelihood. You're not just doing it for the touchdown, you're doing it for a tax-collecting job.
You gave up a size disadvantage to most opponents but never backed down…
Guys would measure themselves against me. And I would measure myself against guys. Playing in the NFL gives you the chance to do something that life says you shouldn't be able to do. I'm 5'9'' and football is one of those things where people would say: 'You're not supposed to be able to do some of the things you can do.'
You were never shy in making your presence felt against defensive players…
Sometimes you have to bring the fight to them. We always talk about a 60-minute game - if you go at a guy hard enough, firmly enough and consistently enough he will learn by the 10th play and he will move on.
But did you respect every opponent?
Every guy I lined up against, I respected. But there are times when you are battling and you get irritable. There are times when you get each other. There are very few guys you walk away from and say, 'I don't respect that guy'. This game is very wicked and the injuries get you, so you respect everybody who is out there. The guys who do cheap shots, those are the ones you have to watch out for - but those are few and far between.
Which defensive players gave you the most trouble?
There are no defenders I feared. There are defenders I needed to study because they are very good and when you consider what they bring to the table, you cannot just roll out of bed and think you're going to beat them purely on athletic ability.
There is the other part of football and that is the mental aspect of the game - you need to understand the weaknesses of your opponent. He may not do very well in certain situations and so you try to put him in those situations. The only way to find that out is through hours and hours of film study. You can see what his weaknesses are and also what his strengths are.
Ravens' Joe Flacco had the 24th-best stats out of NFL quarterbacks last year. Does your former team-mate need to do more?
I really believe all the top-tier quarterbacks have something to prove if your name is not Tom Brady. He is the one who won it [last] year so everybody else is chasing and trying to catch him. So if you're not him, all those guys have a point to prove, but especially those with the big contracts. If you didn't have a good year and if your team didn't make it to the play-offs, the pressure is on.
The thing with Joe is that a lot of people don't understand what it requires when you tear an ACL - that first year is very rough because you're still getting your bearings with your knee.
Then if you have some inconsistency and injuries on the offensive line, and if you have injuries and inconsistency outside at wide receiver, including myself; it can be a factor.
There are a lot of moving parts in an offence and when something is not right but we tend to give quarterbacks all the credit when they are winning and sometimes a little too much flak for losing. We do that because the quarterbacks have the pretty faces and the biggest contracts.
Cam Newton, who you played alongside with the Carolina Panthers, struggled to recreate his 2015 form last season. What went wrong?
He is the face and he is the quarterback. He is the engine that makes that car go. Obviously, he had surgery on his shoulder and he is going to be rehabbing that. Like I said with Joe Flacco, the quarterback is the biggest thing but you also have to draft to make him comfortable.
You could see in Cam's games that there were times he was uncomfortable because of the duress that he was under - not necessarily because of a lack of talent but also through a lack of opportunities for their offense because of injuries.
They're going to get all the parts in there to make sure that he is comfortable. If your quarterback is not comfortable, your team is not playing well. If your team is not playing well, the general manager gets uncomfortable and the head coach gets uncomfortable because he is getting a lot of pressure from the fans. The fans then pressure the owner and the owner pressures everybody else to make sure everyone is playing well.
Do you give advice to the new generation of wide receivers?
I do and I don't. I've been 22-years-old with a pocketful of money and with the world at your fingertips - you're not going to listen to some old, bald under-sized receiver. You've got this - you've got all the answers. I'm a father so I understand that.
I really try hard not to thrust myself onto players. But if there is a guy I really look up to who I think is special, I will invest in him more off the field than on the field. On the field is easy because that has already got him to the NFL. What I do know is that the off-the-field stuff can really have an impact on you for the rest of your life.
I'm a father of four and I love my kids. I was talking with a guy a couple of weeks ago and he asked me about football and I then asked him about some personal things because he has a five-year-old son. I said: 'Hey, do you have a college fund set up for him? Do you know for sure at this stage in his life, at five-years-old, that he is getting a football scholarship?'
He said: 'No'. So I said: 'You're not playing this game to make a lot of money and die broke. What happens if he wants to be a doctor and wants to go to John Hopkins University? Do you know how much John Hopkins costs?' I just talk to them about that kind of thing.
