Ravens cornerback Jimmy Smith will announce his retirement Monday afternoon, ending his NFL profession after 11 years in Baltimore.
Smith, a first-round decide in 2011 who helped safe the Ravens’ Super Bowl XLVII triumph, performed 128 video games in Baltimore, beginning 90. He completed with 14 interceptions, seventh most in franchise historical past.
Smith, 33, acknowledged close to the tip of final season that his future in soccer was unsure. He was set to turn into a free agent, and accidents had restricted him to only 30 video games from 2019 to 2021. He’ll be joined at a information convention Monday by coach John Harbaugh and common supervisor Eric DeCosta.
“It’s tough because I’m a football player,” Smith mentioned earlier than the Ravens’ regular-season finale in January. “I love it. Like, this is my life, and sometimes just even thinking about not playing, I’m like, ‘Ugh, I don’t want to do anything else.’ But it is a grind, and it’s something you have to mentally prepare yourself [for] the older you get. [And] having kids now, all the time, they’re like, ‘Daddy, you’re going to work again? You’re going to work again?’ And it’s like, ‘I’ve been doing this my entire life. I don’t know what it’s like to be free.’ ”
When wholesome, Smith might be a shutdown exterior cornerback, with the method and measurement (6 toes 1) the Ravens have lengthy coveted for his or her aggressive protection schemes. Almost three months into the 2020 season, Pro Football Focus graded Smith because the eighth-best all-around nook within the league and the ninth finest in protection — forward of starters Marlon Humphrey and Marcus Peters.
But accidents quickly sidelined Smith, as they usually did all through his profession. He performed in each sport in a season simply twice, and after 2015, he by no means made greater than 12 appearances in a yr. Smith handled a sprained ankle, a sports activities hernia, a Lisfranc (foot) fracture, a again damage, a torn Achilles tendon, a sprained knee, a strained groin, a shoulder damage, a strained hip and a strained neck, amongst different illnesses, over his profession.
In January, Harbaugh, considered one of Smith’s fiercest advocates in Baltimore, recalled consoling him throughout his rookie yr and telling him that he would get better from a sports activities hernia in time to play. Harbaugh mentioned he advised Smith that “You are going to be the guy that makes the difference in our season and wins us a championship.” In the Super Bowl, Smith saved San Francisco 49ers huge receiver Michael Crabtree from catching the go-ahead landing move on a fourth-and-goal play late within the fourth quarter.
“Darned if it wasn’t him on that last series that made the plays that needed to be made to win the Super Bowl in that game,” Harbaugh mentioned. “So every now and then, we’ll kind of talk about that and kind of laugh about it. That always stands out for me. And then all the way through, he’s been through a lot personally. He’s done a great job with his family and his kids. He’s had to battle some adversity in terms of injuries and things like that, but when the time comes, he always shows up and plays good football.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com