Seahawks-style signing: former first-round pick, ex-All-Pro Aldon Smith joins pass rush
Pete Carroll can never have too many pass rushers.
Or former first-round draft choices as reclamation projects.
That makes Aldon Smith a quintessential Seahawks signing.
Seattle announced Thursday it had a signed contract for 2021 with Smith, the former All-Pro pass rusher who returned to the NFL last fall after four years out of the league on suspensions.
The Seahawks had the 31-year-old Smith in for a free-agent visit on Wednesday. That was after the Dallas Cowboys, the team that restarted his career last season, declined to re-sign him. Smith played in all 16 games for Dallas in 2020. He had five sacks, 14 hits on quarterbacks and 20 QB pressures, according to statistics from Pro Football Reference.
As he has with other Seahawks signings recently, franchise quarterback Russell Wilson trumpeted his approval of his team’s latest move on Twitter.
“Ahhhh Letttsss Gooo!!! Welcome to the squad Aldon!” Wilson posted online, with emojis of biceps flexing and hands framing the move.
The NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell reinstated Smith before the 2020 season. Before that he hadn’t played for anyone since the Raiders in 2015.
In 2014, the league suspended Smith nine games for violating its policies for personal conduct and substance abuse. In August 2015, the 49ers released their seventh-overall pick in the 2011 draft following his arrest on charges of hit and run, driving under the influence and vandalism.
In 2018 Smith pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor charges in a deal with San Francisco prosecutors from a domestic violence case. Smith pleaded no contest to violating a court order and false imprisonment. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail and three years of probation. Smith was allowed to serve the sentence at an inpatient alcohol and drug treatment center, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
He’s been fined more than $4.7 million over his career, per spotrac.
Smith had 33 1/2 sacks in his first two NFL seasons, with San Francisco. He’s had 19 sacks in 43 games since 2012, but has only played in four of the last eight years.
Early last season, the Seahawks saw up close how good a pass rusher Smith can still be. Last September, in the third game of his return after a four-year absence, Smith sacked Wilson three times in the Cowboys’ game at Seattle.
After that performance, the Seahawks tried to trade with Dallas for Smith. When they couldn’t land that deal, the Seahawks traded with Cincinnati in October to acquire two-time Pro Bowl defensive end Carlos Dunlap.
The Seahawks have rebuilt their pass rush this fall with veterans. They re-signed Dunlap on more team-friendly terms after cutting him in March to save $14 million in salary-cap space. They signed Kerry Hyder, who had 8 1/2 sacks last season for San Francisco. They got Dunlap and Hyder for less than half the cap charge Dunlap had been scheduled to have for 2021.
They re-signed Benson Mayowa, who had six sacks last season for Seattle in his second go-round with the team.
And now, in the tradition of Dion Jordan, Josh Gordon, Luke Joeckel, Robert Gallery, Damarious Randall, Phillip Dorsett and others, the Seahawks are trying to continue the career of another former first-round pick.
Smith is a Seattle-esque signing in more ways than that. He is a low-cost, low-risk addition, a one-year, non-guaranteed deal with a potentially high payoff at one of the most important skills in the pass-a-rama NFL.
His incentive-packed deal with minimum base salary from Dallas last year is an example of how much he will likely cost Seattle.
Smith’s contract for his return season with the Cowboys had a non-guaranteed $910,000 salary. He earned per-week bonuses of $40,625 for being active for each of 16 games, for another $650,000 in 2020. He got $2 million in performance incentives from Dallas last year. Those began at eight sacks, for which he would have earned an additional $500,000.
This story was originally published April 15, 2021 at 8:52 AM.
