Za’Darius Smith gets vulnerable on why he retired last year

One of the Falcons’ most exciting signings of the offseason came just weeks before the start of the season, as they inked three-time Pro Bowl pass rusher Za’Darius Smith to a one-year deal.

The decision came in the wake of the injury to Jalon Walker, who tore his ACL and will miss the rest of the season, leaving the Falcons with a massive hole on the edge — especially with James Pearce Jr. set to miss the first eight games due to a suspension.

Expecting Smith to come in and carry the Falcons pass rush at this stage of his career probably isn’t realistic. He’s 33 and actually came out of retirement to join the team. However, that decision to leave the Eagles in the middle of last season had nothing to do with him having second thoughts about playing the game.

It had everything to do with his sick mother, which he explained in an extraordinarily vulnerable moment following Wednesday’s practice.

“I wasn’t supposed to retire,” Smith said, via Josh Alper of Pro Football Talk. “I wasn’t going to tell the story, but I’m going to tell it. I got a phone call from my mom’s doctor telling me that she don’t have much longer to be on this Earth. I let the team know. Obviously they wasn’t trying to let me leave, but that was the only thing I had left — to retire. So I retired.”

It’s a picture-perfect never-judge-a-book-by-its-cover moment. On the surface, Smith abruptly retired in the middle of the season while playing for a team with Super Bowl aspirations. In the sport of football, a lot of people would call that quitting.

So when the Falcons signed Smith, it was natural to question how much he still loved the game. In football, if you’re ever seriously thinking about retiring, it’s usually too late. There aren’t many successful players out there with one foot already out the door.

Then Smith tells his heartbreaking side of the story — one that’s going to make him a fan favorite around Atlanta very quickly. He said his mother always wanted him to play here, given the Falcons’ proximity to his hometown of Montgomery, Alabama.

“My mom — rest her soul, man — she always wanted me to be in Atlanta with the Falcons,” Smith said, via Marc Raimondi of ESPN.

Prior to retiring, Smith recorded 10 tackles, three quarterback hits, and 1.5 sacks in five games for the Eagles. In his last full season, half of which was spent under Kevin Stefanski in Cleveland, he had nine sacks — a total that would have ranked second on the Falcons last year.

—

(Photo by Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire)