Why Vikings safety Harrison Smith is still one of the smartest players in the NFL (2024)

EAGAN, Minn. — Harrison Smith is holding an oval-shaped black remote that looks like a nunchuk you’d use for Nintendo. The device has a green laser pointer, which he’s aiming at a projector screen. It’s the week before Smith’s 13th NFL season, and he’s sitting here in the defensive backs room on the second floor of the Minnesota Vikings’ facility, using the laser pointer to highlight something.

“See that black pad on my right arm?” he asks. “Yeah, so that’s covering up an injury from that game where my arm ran into Matt Forte’s f—ing leg.”

He places the black remote on the desk in front of him.

“Feel this,” he says, leaning over. It was as if a chunk of his arm was dented, like a pothole.

He grabs the black remote and resumes the film, one of his interceptions from 2013. He rewinds, plays, pauses, rewinds and plays again.

“My arm — the next week, the whole thing was black,” Smith says. “Every aspect of it was black.”

Did that concern you?

“Uh, at the time it did,” he says, “because I thought I broke it. And I could’ve cracked it or something because of the way it’s grown over now.”

So, your concern was for playing. Not, like, your health.

“Yeah,” he says, “I wasn’t coming out.”

This is but a glimpse into the psychology of the 35-year-old safety, who leads all active players at the position in interceptions (34), tackles (766), games started (175), quarterback hits (42) and forced fumbles (12). Smith is a six-time Pro Bowler, a former first-team All-Pro, a surefire Vikings Ring of Honor member and a potential Hall of Famer who has long gone by the nickname “Hitman.”

It’s an apt description for a man who does not fear violent over-the-middle collisions or his arm changing colors. It’s also a deceptive moniker that masks the muscle that has really provided him staying power, a muscle he’s flexing in a film session as he reviews some of the most memorable plays of his career.

The muscle? His mind.

“So, just go?” Smith asks.

Let it rip.

He presses play on the black remote, and grainy film materializes on the projector screen of a 2013 game between the Vikings and Chicago Bears. It’s the second quarter, and Smith is stationed in his typical two-deep safety spot over the top of Brandon Marshall, who is positioned in the slot, and Alshon Jeffery, who is aligned out wide. Jay Cutler is the Bears’ quarterback.

Cutler receives the snap and eyes Smith’s side. Smith drifts backward, trying to essentially cover half the field. It’s not an easy task with Jeffery sprinting down the seam and Marshall blazing up the sideline. Cutler pump-fakes a pass down the middle, then airs a pass toward Marshall, who is streaking up the sideline. Smith doesn’t bite on the pump, swivels around, tracks the pass and secures the interception.

“I was an unknown guy at the time,” Smith says. “It’s my second year. Jay is probably like, ‘F— it. I’ll try this White guy on a jump ball.’ But I knew he was going to throw it to B-Marsh.”

Smith rewinds the play to the beginning.

“Normally,” he says, “safeties are supposed to be, like, squared up and backpedaling. See my body position here?”

He was turned, like a baseball player running for a fly ball.

“I did that so I can go either way,” Smith says.

Do they teach that?

“Not really,” he says. “You kind of have to have a feel for it.”

Where’d you learn to do it?

“I used to watch Ed Reed, and he was barely backpedaling,” Smith says. “Sean Taylor once did it against Randy Moss and got a PBU.”

Smith fast-forwards the play through once more, watching his younger self high-point the pass and snatch it from Marshall.

“If you throw a ball like this,” Smith says, “I’m so happy.”

He’s stone-faced.

“I don’t care that it’s Brandon Marshall,” he says. “And I have a ton of respect for Brandon Marshall. But when this ball goes up, I’m back there like, ‘F— yes.’”

Harrison Smith INT!@Vikings take the ball down by 7.

📺: #MINvsWAS on FOX
📱: Stream on NFL+ https://t.co/rhDoPc9SFW pic.twitter.com/Ms1l8c3Hjk

— NFL (@NFL) November 6, 2022

We’re watching his first interception, a pick six in 2012 against Arizona Cardinals quarterback John Skelton.

“I played a little running back in high school at Knoxville Catholic in Tennessee,” he says. “You’re always told never to cut it back. But I saw a little gap.”

Now we’re watching an interception off a blitz from a 2014 game against the Miami Dolphins. The Vikings called the blitz “Irish” because of Smith’s alma mater: Notre Dame. Smith races toward Miami quarterback Ryan Tannehill, leaps and snags the pass from mere feet away.

“You’re taught not to jump in case they pump it,” Smith says, “but I jumped anyway.”

That was, like, the third time he said he was taught not to do something and did it anyway.

“That’s when you normally play your best,” he says, “when you’re, like, subconsciously coached up but can still just be an athlete and not be a robot.”

He rewinds the play, pauses it, aims the laser pointer at the screen and circles one of his teammates.

“Coaches don’t want to hear this,” Smith says, “but I should’ve pitched it.”

He laughs, and we’re on to a 2015 pick six against Eli Manning.

He includes this play, a leaping grab similar to the one against the Bears, for two reasons. First, it highlights the importance of pregame preparation. Before the game, the defensive staff had identified that Manning preferred to throw to the backside in this specific formation. Second, well …

“This was my first game back from a pretty bad MCL injury,” he says. “I had also torn a muscle called the gracilis in my left leg. It’s still torn.”

Excuse me?

“Yeah,” he says, “we just left it alone.”

The backstory: In early December 2015, the Vikings played the Seattle Seahawks. Smith had already hurt his MCL, and on one of the first plays, he swooped in for a tackle for loss. “A sick TFL,” he says. The next play, on a pass to the flat, the muscle snapped, but Smith says it was “only 90 percent torn.”

Doctors said he could undergo surgery, but then he’d miss time. Smith says they also told him he could tear it himself and keep playing. He tried to tear it on his own by jumping up and down. The pain brought him to tears. He still practiced. “It hurt like a b—-,” he says. One afternoon, after a play in practice, he was walking backward and bumped into a teammate’s foot. The gracilis fully popped.

“I was like, ‘Oh, I’m good now,’” Smith says. “It was fine after that.”

You never feel it?

“You can see it,” he says, pointing at his knee, “but my body just adapted.”

Right.

“They say you don’t need it,” he says. “But you need everything.”

Smith is rolling.

He watches a 2016 sack of Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton and talks about how he rushes the passer with his outside foot forward to get a better angle. He moves to a 2017 one-handed interception off Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Hundley and says that, typically, if there’s play action to one side, he’s expecting crossers behind the second level. A 2018 interception of Drew Brees conjures a thought about coach Sean Payton.

“(Former Vikings coach Mike Zimmer) would call him a nondiscriminant play caller,” Smith says. “Like, down and distance didn’t matter. Personnel didn’t matter. He would just call crazy s—.”

Did that make it hard?

“I appreciated that about him because not a lot of play callers have the confidence to do that,” Smith says. “Sometimes it bit him, but I’d say in the long run, it’s a huge advantage for him.”

He shakes his head at a 2020 interception against the Tennessee Titans and says he was so frustrated after the game that he drove directly to a golf course to clear his head. He shrugs about a 2021 tip against the Dallas Cowboys that resulted in an interception for teammate Xavier Rhodes. He reaches a play from 2022 and says, “Which play is this?”

He rewinds, then smiles wryly.

“Oh, this is 2022,” he says. “Rodgers is trying me.”

Indeed, Aaron Rodgers, who quarterbacked the rival Packers, airs a ball down the field in Smith’s direction. Smith leaps over Randall Cobb for the interception. The play spurs a conversation about quarterbacks, and Smith explains why he thinks Rodgers is the most talented quarterback he’s played against.

“We knew every time we played him that we’d be covering for, like, six seconds,” Smith says.

So it was his ability to buy time that made him difficult to face?

“In a way, but he was buying time for his guys to get open,” Smith says. “He would run simple concepts by design so that it would just break down and they’d just be playing basketball, and there were no rules at that point.”

INTERCEPTED BY THE HITMAN!!!@HarriSmith22

🎙: @PAOnTheMic pic.twitter.com/xk7oip0ucl

— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) November 3, 2022

Once, on “The Pat McAfee Show,” Rodgers talked about Smith’s ability to disguise his coverages. He said he thought Smith was the best in the NFL at it.

Smith laughs, then tells another story. Once, before the snap, Rodgers surveyed the Vikings defense. When his eyes met Smith’s, Rodgers smiled. He then waved to him the way you would when you’re asking someone to walk over to your table in a restaurant. He was essentially trolling Smith about knowing he would soon be walking down into the box.

“To do that in an actual game, that’s some f—ing moxie,” Smith says, grinning. “Like, nobody saw that. Nobody besides me and him. It’s a game. He’s kinda talking (smack), letting me know that he knows. I kinda liked it.”

This was his opponent informing him he was ahead in their chess match. Of course he liked it.

The final play comes up on the projector screen. The film is less grainy, and the matchup is familiar. Smith is wearing a purple jersey on defense, and San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy is crouching under center.

Loving this flick 🎥🍿@cambeezy_

📺: @ESPNNFL pic.twitter.com/JtZpGFn4oP

— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) October 24, 2023

This play, a Cam Bynum interception, occurred last year on “Monday Night Football.” Smith is barely near the play.

“This is the stuff that, in my older age, I absolutely love,” he says.

Wait, what should we be looking at?

“This is a good reroute,” he says. “This is, like, high school football.”

A reroute?

He pauses the play before the snap and expounds on his process. He flashes the laser pointer on 49ers tight end George Kittle. Kittle’s stance, Smith says, hints that he is likely to remain in the backfield as a blocker. Smith then flashes the green light over the receivers on both sides of the formation. These players, he says, are the ones the defense has to worry about.

Because Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores sometimes allows players to roam freely and not attach to a specific receiver, Smith knows he is free to bump the receiver within 5 yards. Savvily affecting the receiver’s path throws off the timing of a quarterback and offense that live off players arriving in the right spot at the right moment.

Once he presses play, Smith drifts into the receiver, then tosses his hands up like you do in basketball when you plead to the referee that you haven’t committed a foul.

“It doesn’t go on your PFF score,” Smith says, “but it’s a winning play.”

He is satisfied, seemingly more happy about this easy-to-miss, split-second decision than anything else. The wooden table in front of him rattles when he sets the remote atop it. He has a team meeting to run off to, but before he exits, he ponders a question: Why is he still doing this?

He is quiet for a few seconds.

“I mean, to act like I’m not getting paid a lot would be silly,” he says. “So, like, money is good. Is the money I’m going to make this year going to change my life? Probably not. So, that’s not the main reason.”

He thinks for another beat.

“It’s game day,” he says, nodding as if to confirm.

It’s everything that goes into making these plays: the adrenaline, the preparation, the strategy, the intuition, the toughness, the camaraderie. Money cannot buy this mental playground, and as usual, Smith is well aware.

(Top photo: Bruce Kluckhohn / Associated Press)