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The hiring of Jacksonville Jaguars defensive coordinator Mike Smith by the Atlanta Falcons as their new head coach will be met with some surprise around the league.
It shouldn't be.
Mike Smith is a really good football coach. He's organized, he's detailed and he's a tireless worker.
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| Mike Smith might not be a big-name hire, but he's the right hire. (AP) |
In speaking with several key Jaguars defensive players over the years, they've always said their success on that side of the ball was a good thing, but it also meant they might lose Smith, which they didn't want to do.
"Smitty's our guy," Jaguars middle linebacker Mike Peterson said earlier this year. "We're selfish, we don't want him to go anywhere."
He isn't their guy anymore, and now he will be faced with trying to resurrect the Falcons messy situation. Smith is a low-key coach who spent his youth in Daytona Beach on a surfboard. But the players insist Smith can turn on the mean streak when it needs to come out.
That's always the fine line with a coach, when to push and when to pull. Smith seems to have that.
In 2006, when injuries crippled his defense, he somehow managed to get that unit to third in the league. In 2007, after losing Peterson and Marcus Stroud for the season, and playing without a true pass rusher, the Jaguars finished 12th in the league in total defense. But they were fifth in scoring defense at 19 points per game. That's amazing if you considered he didn't have the middle of his defense and he had to manufacture a pass rush.
On a team coached by a defensive coach in Jack Del Rio, Smith was given the freedom to run the defense his way. The two knew each other from working together with the Baltimore Ravens on Brian Billick's staff. Billick happens to be Smith's brother-in-law, the two marrying sisters.
Early in his tenure in Jacksonville, word began to spread inside the building that Smith was a special coach. Players I know and respect talked up his ability to scheme up a defense. Those who spent hours watching his defenses on tape raved about them.
It wasn't sexy, but it worked. I remember talking to Smith last summer about whether he felt the fact his defenses weren't "sexy" might hurt his chances of getting a head-coaching job. Exotic sometimes sells. He said he couldn't worry about that and had to do things the way he does them. Things would work out if they did them right, he said.
Smith isn't a self-promoter, which is why many around the league might not know him. It's taken him time to become more outgoing with the media, but he's worked at it and evolved. He did a segment with me on the radio in Jacksonville the past two years called "Smitty's Corner." He's improved every week by working at it. The best thing is he did the segment because he wanted to work on his media skills. That shows commitment and a desire to be a head coach.
