The Never-Ending Spiral of Aldon Smith

here's a fun little trivia question from the years 2011 to 2012 three young pass rushers from the same draft class were making it known that they were the future of dominance in the NFL with sack totals of 26 30 and 33 and a half after just those two seasons the first two respectively are future Hall of Famers JJ Watt and Von Miller and the third guy that's leading the pack well that's Alden Smith the NFL is littered with stories of unrealized potential whether it's those who struggled to escape the throes of addiction or those who throw their careers away with ill thought out decisions Alden Smith has unfortunately come to be known as a culmination of many of those things a player gifted with insane generational talent but ultimately anchored down by a mountain of off-field problems Alden Smith has recently been pleading with the NFL to reinstate him in the league given his legal issues and now a fresh one which police have named him specifically his future is very uncertain the NFL is Infamous for just how fast teams are willing to jettison players but Smith is one of the very few talented enough to have received chance after chance after chance even to this day so in this video I want to talk about the frustrating and troubled story of Alden Smith because it's really not every day you can find a pass rusher who can only be blocked by himself shut up you held this stupid are you trying to smoke man is this Astra yeah you're stupid you're tripping they don't know it's me it's not like I put Alden Smith [Music] at Raytown High School in Missouri Alden Smith made noise in and around his home state but with a later start to football his talent wouldn't be nationally recognized that is until he suited up as a redshirt freshman for the Mizzou Tigers there he was impossible to ignore named a first-team freshman All-American after racking up 11 sacks in 11 games and though the following year he'd suffer a fibula fracture that ended his sophomore season early Smith had already put more than enough on tape to justify a lot of hype for the upcoming NFL draft at 6-4 265 Alden Smith was not only the ideal size but his speed and burst off the edge were the kind of natural ability you can't really teach some criticized a lack of total strength but as it turns out you can make most levels of strength work for you if you're just longer and faster than everyone trying to slow you down the overall 2011 Draft class will end up ranking among the best in NFL history when it's all said and done with 11 First Team all Pros selected in the first 15 picks and right smack in the middle of them Alden Smith was taken 7th overall by the San Francisco 49ers but he wouldn't be the only high profile rookie in the bay as first year head coach Jim Harbaugh and second round quarterback Colin Kaepernick were also looking to find their footing at the next level and that did happen very quickly despite a disappointing 6-10 season the year before Harbaugh raised the bar for a loaded Niners roster and they exploded out to a 13-3 finish Alden Smith played a large role in that he led all rookies with 14 sacks in 16 games and that was just a half sack away from the all-time rookie sack record despite the fact that he never even started a game that season he was just a rotational guy and when you look at his highlights like this one of his very first NFL sack against Mike Vick of all players you can understand that impact from the moment he stepped onto the field he was one of the best in the NFL at pursuing the quarterback you might step up or escape the pocket but that doesn't mean that you're getting away Smith sack total already ranked best among rookies in 49er history but his season to come in 2012 would jump him up to among the best in league history in a year full of headlines like quarterback controversy and Super Bowl blackouts Smith managed to create his own placing himself in the elite tier of NFL Defenders with a 19 and a half sack season just one less than League leader JJ Watt and won more than the player who edged him out for Rookie of the Year of the Year prior Von Miller each of them had their own unique style of dominance but after 2012 there was little doubt that these three were going to be at the top of the NFL sack leaders for a long long time Smith was arguably in the best position to succeed and All Pro himself with multiple All-Pro talents aiding in his development and helping clear pass to the backfield but his one-on-one prowess against blockers and Relentless pursuit of the ball started drawing comparisons to Legends like Lawrence Taylor and they weren't really blowing smoke unfortunately dominance wasn't the only commonality LT and Alden Smith shared because while Taylor became Infamous for coupling his legendary play with pretty poor decisions off the field Alden Smith's off-field troubles were all he would become infamous for while they didn't affect his first two seasons of play in the NFL Smith's career wouldn't get far before they began to mount into a distraction directly following his rookie year he would be arrested in Miami on suspicions of driving under the influence and later that off-season he'd also be stabbed when breaking up a house party at his residence an incident where two others were shot as well because Smith's 2012 campaign was so successful it would allow these to be swept aside as anomalies rather than warning signs in the first few games of 2013 Smith picked up right where he left off but on September 20th just two weeks into the regular season Alden Smith was arrested again on DUI suspicions after crashing his car into a tree in a residential area just two days later Smith would suit up and play against the Indianapolis Colts but there was also recognition that this pattern of behavior not only threatened career but also his life and Smith checked into a rehab facility where he would miss the next five weeks of the season in a perfect world this would be the end of Smith's off-field issues but as anyone who's familiar with addiction knows overcoming it is rarely that easy especially when you have the distractions of an ongoing NFL season and also felony weapons charges that had followed from that house party incident Smith returned to the 49ers in November and while his Ascension to being the most feared player in football had hit a speed bump that didn't mean he wasn't still at a historic Pace when the Niners 2013 season ended with that heartbreaking NFC Championship loss Alden Smith sack total stood at 42 in 43 games played the third most in NFL history behind only Reggie White and Derek Thomas I mean for the first three years of his career Smith's stats always placed him in a league of players who were instantly recognizable for their dominance harnessing that lightning in a bottle is one thing though being able to hold on to it for as long as those other Legends did is its own skill entirely and unfortunately Smith was already starting to lose his grip Alden Smith has been arrested at LAX airport he claimed that he had a bomb in an airport like really in one of the most bizarre football headlines of the pre-2019 a b era Alden Smith was detained at LAX after getting agitated and making a false bomb threat also known as the single dumbest thing you can do at an airport no charges were filed but the continuing cycle of negative media headlines prompted the NFL to step in and crack down on Smith's stunts issuing a nine-game suspension for the 2014 season in accordance with the League's substance abuse and personal conduct policies unsurprisingly Smith wasn't quite in the same form when he returned recording two sacks over his final seven games as he got back just in time to watch the collapse of the Harbaugh era in San Francisco somehow though Alden Smith's personal spiral was still in its early stages mere months later in August 2015 on the first day of 49ers training camp Smith was arrested for DUI again and also a hidden run and vandalism after posting Bond he met with 49ers GM Trent bulky where he reportedly evaded claiming responsibility for his actions which ended up being the final blow to his time in San Francisco frustrations started to morph into pity as it was clear that Smith had a multitude of unresolved problems building a self-destructive cycle that was costing him everything he'd spent his young life building but as the saying goes in the NFL at least one man's Fall From Grace is another team's opportunity and Smith would up and sign with the Oakland Raiders just five weeks later he played nine games to start off the 2015 season and finished with 28 tackles and three and a half sacks before inevitably the league levied a year-long suspension against him for his continued violation of the substance abuse policy to this point an off-season arrest had occurred for Alden Smith every year since the week after his rookie season but in serving his suspension in 2016 he managed to stay out of the news and what do you know in February of 2017 NFL Network reported that Alden was scheduled for reinstatement the next month and he would send out a tweet announcing his return to the world Alden Smith did return and he would make headlines but unlike what many were hoping for they still were not on the football field how are you feeling I'm doing great can you tell us what happened were you involved in a crash no no why were you at the police station no reason you were you're denying that you were detanged for public intoxication no no hell no were you involved in a crash with police officers no it wasn't if I was involved with like I couldn't go from the I couldn't I couldn't do that well we saw your SUV be towed away with your license plates the car that's leased by you that's not wasn't me not driving but but you were in the car no girlfriend you guys didn't need to stop this story all right thank you okay all right thank you bud all right now leave me alone okay okay watching him be ambushed after being released for public intoxication is honestly pretty difficult to watch he's still clearly not all there but he does seem to understand the weight of the situation as he basically pleads with the press to not make him look bad since he's still trying to get reinstated he would not get reinstated and Alden Smith once again sat out a full 16-game season for the second year in a row at this point his hopes of again becoming an NFL star were being lowered into the grave but even less than a year later on March 4th 2018 Smith just still couldn't put down the shovel last night a woman reported that former 49er and current Raider Alden Smith was here and she reported that he was involved in a domestic violence incident new developments with troubled football player Alden Smith the Raiders released him today just days after another off-field incident they made the announcement via this tweet right here just after noon quote the Raiders have released linebacker Alden Smith after being released by his second team due to off-field issues the 2018 and 2019 Seasons passed by with Smith remaining on indefinite suspension and Alden Smith would become no longer a real topic of discussion in NFL circles to make a sad story even sadder he was arrested again on suspicion of a DUI in June 2019. it didn't seem to matter whether Alden was in or out of football his life in Southern California was serving as a hamster wheel for him to just keep repeating the same costly mistakes over and over again eventually Smith said he hit rock bottom and gave himself perspective on his mistakes from others and ultimately realized he was still in control of what to do with his life so he got sober and teamed up with NFL Insider Jay Glazer to train for a comeback for real this time getting back into playing shape at 287 pounds in March of 2020 he applied for his reinstatement and though not everyone jumped at the opportunity to sign a player who'd been out of the league for nearly five years there was at least one man in Frisco Texas that was very interested FC in keeping with Dallas's track record of trying to get diamonds out of Dimes Alden Smith would become a cowboy and you know as far as Jerry's gambles tend to go this one year four million dollar deal turned out pretty well Smith played all 16 games for the first time since 2012. recording 48 tackles and five sacks for a Cowboys defense that desperately needed some bright spots he was a bigger body at the line of scrimmage but overall Smith seemed to hang on to a decent amount of the athleticism he had as a 22 year old despite now being 31. hell he even returned a fumble 78 yards for a touchdown against the Bengals late in that year if it weren't for Alex Smith writing one of the most incredible stories in football history comeback player was a real possibility for Alden and it was genuinely great to see a guy who appeared to be off the rails for so long start to put the pieces back together despite that successful season Dallas decided to move on from Smith in 2021 with undisclosed issues cited as the main reason that description is nice and ominous but that didn't deter his next team in the Seattle Seahawks who were able to sign Smith to a one-year 1.1 million dollar deal after keeping tabs on him since his reinstatement but as with all things relating to Alden Smith's career the only thing guaranteed is that there are no guarantees just two one two days later on April 17 2021 Alden Smith would get into an altercation at a Louisiana coffee shop where he rendered a victim unconscious with severe enough injuries to warn him being taken to a hospital that as it was reported is second degree battery with a penalty of up to two thousand dollars and or up to eight years in prison if Alden Smith is convicted it's honestly the most bizarre turn in the absolute roller coaster of a career Alden Smith has had with his proudest moment in a decade feeding directly into possibly the most costly mistake of his life though I mean I'll admit it's tough to pick a winner there as of right now at the time I'm making this video Alden Smith has still reported to Seahawks camp where they've told the media they're awaiting the legal process to play out but with Smith's longer than long track record and previous suspensions from the NFL it's hard to see a path where his actions aren't again met with a Hardline suspension I mean at this point after all these years what else is there to do for this man within football when he clearly has a number of issues that have to be worked through though I mean I won't be the least bit surprised if he's back out on the field anyways while almost all of his instances in the past have revolved around alcohol or substance abuse this most recent case in Louisiana has yet to detail any of that and even if it does it still only affirms that Smith has an inability to control his impulses and make responsible decisions even when he knows full well that it could be the end of his career again regardless of what happens from this point forward I definitely view Alden Smith's career more is a tragedy than anything else former head coach Jack Del Rio chimed in during Smith's suspension from the Raiders about how League policy that forbids contact with suspended players is ultimately really detrimental sure you want to prevent unfair coaching and all of that but for a player like Alden Smith who was never able to gain solid structure around him that isolation directly contributed to his inability to escape the spiral at 31 years old now a decade removed from his initial year in the NFL Alden Smith has been given as many chances as one man can receive which is truly a testament to the talent he was born with but at a certain point on this Merry-Go-Round when does that Talent start becoming an obstacle to maybe finding a better path in life football or not I just hope this man is able to find peace at the end of the day Alden Smith will always be a what if story especially because of the peers he demonstrated he could go toe-to-toe with in his first two seasons but he also stands as one of the single best warnings that structure and accountability outside of your career is just as important as structure within it because ultimately generational talent to chase down quarterbacks doesn't mean anything if your demons are able to catch you first thank you [Music]

Channel: Set the Edge

Views: 182,761

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Id: V_lRhJ5dmKM

Length: 17min 26sec (1046 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 01 2021