PRODIGAL SON
After being nearly retired, Antonio Smith is happy to be back with the Texans.
Few players have seen higher highs or lower lows than the prodigal Texan Antonio Smith. Contemplating the vicissitudes of Smith’s 13 NFL seasons with four franchises — and two chapters as a Texan — can almost induce vertigo. This is a man who has played in two Super Bowls, winning the second one after the first one had been cruelly snatched from his grasp with only seconds to go.
This also is a man who, in between those Super Bowls, helped the Texans twice reach the playoffs, but whose first stop in Houston ended with 14 consecutive defeats and whose only season in Oakland, the next one, began with 10 in a row.
That’s right. Smith went 0-24 from September 2013 through December of 2014. Nobody who wasn’t under contract to the expansion 1976-77 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who lost 26 straight, has ever come up emptyhanded in more consecutive games than Smith. And one of those beatdowns as a Raider came courtesy of the Texans. He couldn’t get on the right side of anything.
It’s worth noting, too, that despite his two sacks of David Carr in a 2005 game in Houston, Smith’s Arizona Cardinals lost 30-19 to a Texans team that had itself dropped 12 of its previous 13 games and finished 2-14, the same as Smith’s Texans eight years later.
“I’ve seen it all,” the prodigal defensive end conceded this week, sitting at his locker soaked in sweat after a rigorous post-practice weightlifting session. “Guess you could say I’ve had a funny career. It’s definitely been a
roller-coaster of emotions, your heart changing from one loyalty to another and going through (the interminable personal losing streak). At the end, I think it’s made me a better, more wellrounded player and man.”
As he spoke, Smith was contemplating both his 35th birthday, which is today, and his Monday Night Football return to Denver where, as a one-and-done Bronco playing for Gary Kubiak and Wade Phillips, he claimed that Super Bowl ring in February.
‘A special Ninja’
Kubiak, as everybody knows, was the poor wretch whose almost eight-season Texans tenure ended with his firing following an 0-11 collapse following a 2-0 start, not a full year removed from a franchise-best 12-4 finish. Three more defeats followed with Phillips holding the Texans’ interim reins before Phillips, too, would be fired — or at least not hired — by the new guy, Bill O’Brien. It was Phillips, of course, who then took charge of a good Denver defense last fall after Kubiak took over as the head coach and tweaked it into being a great one.
With Smith’s help. There were lots of younger defensive linemen the Broncos could have brought in to provide quality depth. But Smith had all the intangibles. He was a known commodity. Kubiak, Phillips and defensive line coach Bill Kollar, also a Texans coaching alum, didn’t have a long debate about signing him.
“Just a great guy to coach and a fun guy, a unique personality, a special Ninja,” Phillips said with a chuckle, giving a nod to Smith’s post-sack sword-unsheathing Ninja warrior shtick. “He’s a veteran who plays tremendously hard. He leads by example, but he’s a unique personality, too. When you’ve been with teams that won and some that didn’t, and he has, you’ve got a perspective that kind of rubs off on your other players.”
Phillips compared Smith with a couple of similarly unsung Houston Oilers defensive linemen, Andy Dorris and Ken Kennard, he had as a young coach working under his father, Bum, in the late 1970s. Like Smith, he said, “they’d fight for you every play.”
Kubiak’s latest health scare — he missed the Broncos’ most recent game after being hospitalized suffering from a severe migraine — harkened back to his sideline collapse at NRG Stadium in 2013. Smith was deeply concerned when he got the news, then deeply relieved to learn that Kubiak was OK. He joked, “I’m happy he’s all right on one hand, but on the other, he could have waited one more game. Just relax, chill, rest up.”
The Texans’ O’Brien didn’t know Smith from Adam a month ago and wouldn’t know him today if the Texans’ hadn’t lost J. J. Watt for the season. But general manager Rick Smith gave a thumbs up and Smith, who was about 9/10ths retired, was given a pennies-from-heaven opportunity to get “that bad taste out of my mouth” over how he thought his Texans career had ended.
So far, so good. His new old team has won two of three since he filled the roster spot that Watt had vacated. Lest you have forgotten, though, Smith signed not knowing that, simultaneously, Watt had gone down for the count.
“That was the only bad thing (coming back),” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. I love that kid.”
‘This is home’
Smith also loves Houston. “Of all the places I’ve played,” he said, “this is home. This is it. Winning that Super Bowl was special, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that winning the Super Bowl here would be even more special.”
Because of what he experienced in Denver last season, Smith admitted going back as the enemy will be odd but ultimately no big deal “because I’ve been kind of a journeyman for awhile now. Also, he won’t be in the fans’ crosshairs to anywhere near the same degree as quarterback Brock Osweiler, who chose to put the Broncos in his rear-view mirror. He’s going out of his way to counsel Osweiler on how to handle the situation.
“It’s going to be a tough and hard environment, but I think that’s exactly what Brock wants and what he needs to keep building his legacy,” Smith said. “He needs tests. He needs trials, the ups and downs. When he gets done facing these trials, it’s going to make him a more well-rounded, more confident quarterback who can’t be shaken. I bet Brock is probably chomping at the bit, the opportunity to be in a game like this. The stage is set for him.”
Smith’s locker, the same one he previously occupied, is between the ones belonging to rookie D.J. Reader and Christian Covington, who’s in his second season. Reader began the season assigned to Smith’s spot but he came in the day after Smith signed and found that he had been moved one slot to the left.
“He brings a funny side to the meetings and the practice field,” Covington said. “He’s a good leader to have on this team. Some days, when he talks about how his body is feeling, he sounds like an old guy. But he still thinks like a young guy. It’s amazing he can come in, not playing since the Super Bowl, and fit right in.”
Reader, despite being displaced, added, “He’s like an uncle, somebody to bounce ideas off. And I used to watch him do that Ninja thing. I’m grateful — it’s dope — to have him right next to me.”