Seahawks officially waive Aldon Smith, sign Spanaway Lake graduate Lakiem Williams
The Seahawks made official that they’ve waived former All-Pro pass rusher Aldon Smith, as an NFL source had told The News Tribune early Wednesday.
To fill Smith’s place on the preseason roster, Seattle signed linebacker Lakiem Williams Wednesday afternoon. He is a Tacoma native and Spanaway Lake High School graduate.
Williams told syracuse.com in 2019 he ran the 40-yard dash in a time below 4.4 seconds while a running back at Spanaway Lake.
He moved to linebacker while beginning his college football career at Butte College in Oroville, California. From there, he signed with Syracuse. His senior season for the Orange he started all 12 games at middle linebacker and was third-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference. Williams was not selected in the 2020 NFL draft. He was briefly with the Ottawa Redblacks of the Canadian Football League this summer.
Williams’ arrival follows injuries to backup linebackers Cody Barton and Jon Rhattigan, the undrafted rookie from Army West Point. Veteran Nick Bellore, a fullback and Pro Bowl special-teams player last season, has been practiving at linebacker for about a week.
Smith began the month reviving his career. The former All-Pro defensive end was in supreme shape. He was picking up metal blocking sleds and just about throwing them across the practice field at training camp.
More important, he was picking up the trust of coach Pete Carroll and the Seahawks.
Smith has dropped all that—and his chance in Seattle.
The Seahawks made official that they waived Smith Wednesday afternoon. The move came before Carroll’s latest veteran reclamation project played a game for Seattle.
A league source indicated to The News Tribune Smith violated the conditions to which he, Carroll and the Seahawks agreed when they signed and supported him this spring.
This isn’t a football story. It’s a life story.
Smith talked two weeks ago of his daily challenge to stay sober.
“Learning how to enjoy, learning how to trust people, and just being open,” Smith said, when asked his approach to sobriety.
He is due in court in Louisiana Aug. 24 following his alleged battery of a man in a coffee shop there this spring. That alleged incident happened days after Seattle signed him to a non-guaranteed contract for the 2021 season.
Smith was out of the league on suspensions for four years ending last season, following incidents involving alcohol and domestic violence. He’s been fined $4.7 million during his NFL career that began with 14 sacks and making the league’s all-rookie team in 2011 with the 49ers. In 2018 he pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor charges in a deal with San Francisco prosecutors. That was 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, as the San Francisco Chronicle detailed.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell reinstated Smith last year. Dallas signed him for the 2020 season.
“It was a blessing,” he said. “I was gone for a long time.
“During that time, a lot of thoughts cross your mind. You don’t know if you’re going to play this game, if you want to play this game, how you feel.
“I’m a human. I deal with emotions. And I think having the people around me who are positive and telling me positive things, then, me believing that positive stuff got me in that place where I knew I could play the game, I knew I was ready to play the game.
“I was blessed with the opportunity to get back and play the game. I’m grateful for that.”
His daily fight isn’t beating offensive linemen off the edge, getting to the quarterback, or the math of roster spots and cut-downs from 91 players to 53 that must come a month.
It’s staying sober.
Carroll said this month he had made his and the Seahawks’ expectations of Smith “very clear” to him amid Smith’s pending arraignment and possible NFL punishment from his latest arrest, through the red flags of a career once lost and now seemingly lost again.
“I want him to succeed at this in the worst way, and I want him to come through and show that he can do what he needs to do,” Carroll said two weeks ago. “We’re going to give him every opportunity.
“The level of communication is very clear, and he’s been very open with us. He’s told us when things were harder than others. He’s been upfront in that regard, and that helped us to understand, believe, and trust he’s working at it. It isn’t easy, and it’s a lifelong commitment he has to make. We really sense that the more we can support him, the more obviously we can be there for him, the stronger it makes him.
“That’s really what our intent is here.”
The Seahawks and Cowboys now have each let Smith go in a span of seven months. Dallas didn’t renew his contract this winter. In April, Seattle signed him to a non-guaranteed deal worth $990,000, around the NFL veteran minimum.
Cutting Smith saves Seattle $850,000 against this year’s league salary cap. The Seahawks began the week with an estimated $8.2 million in cap space, per overthecap.com. They needs about half that amount for their three draft choices, practice-squad salaries and potential injury contingencies this season.
So ends the fourth chance of Smith’s career. The 31-year-old former star pass rusher with the San Francisco 49ers looked sleek in his new Seahawks number 99. He had been flying around training camp more like he’s 21.
After four years out of the league, trust was what Smith was counting on to stay in the league.
From Mike Williams and LenDale White early in his Seahawks tenure to Brandon Marshall, Josh Gordon and Antonio Brown, Carroll has rarely passed up a chance to pursue top talent and athleticism for Seattle, regardless—and sometimes because of—a player’s past. The 69-year-old motivator, mentor and friend to his players has never met one he hasn’t believed he could help by force of personality, leadership and compassion.
Williams, White, Marshall and Gordon failed to remain in Carroll’s Seahawks program.
Now, apparently, Smith has failed, too.
Carroll’s trusted defensive coordinator, Ken Norton Jr., was Smith’s coordinator with the Raiders in 2015. Seahawks assistant special teams coach Tracy Smith was also on that Raiders staff when Aldon Smith played for Oakland. Seattle’s offensive line coach Mike Solari had that job with the 49ers during Aldon Smith’s first four, starring seasons with the 49ers—including when Smith had 19 1/2 sacks and made All-Pro in 2012.
That was before alcohol, domestic violence and other incidents derailed not just Smith’s career, but his life.
Carroll relied on Norton’s, Tracy Smith’s and Solari’s opinions of Smith.
That’s how the Seahawks came to invite Smith for a free-agent visit this spring, when the rest of the league seemingly had no interest in keeping his career going.
Asked what he needed to hear from Smith in order to be comfortable adding him to the Seahawks, Carroll said: “It’s a good question, because I wanted to feel him and feel where he’s coming from.
“We talked to him a number of times before we made a decision. We did a lot of homework, a lot of research on him and him as a person. A number of our coaches have been with Aldon in other places, which really helped us. They’ve seen him work on a day-to-day basis. That was really important. Kenny was really important in this decision.”
Carroll sought to learn Smith’s support team, his counselors, the people to whom Smith must confide in, test with, trust to keep his career going per terms of his reinstatement from suspension by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell last year.
“I have a tremendous support staff,” Smith said.
“For me, it was just making myself vulnerable and being willing to trust and lean on the people,” he said. “I’ve always had people that were there, but I’ve always tried to carry everything on my shoulders.
“Letting people help me and accepting that help was a major game changer.”
But was it a life changer?
It’s a cold question.
Yet, as Wednesday’s news showed, it’s a fair one.
This story was originally published August 11, 2021 at 12:41 PM.
