If his nerves were wired like most, this weekend would frazzle Rod Smith to his sticky fingertips.
His Broncos will open their 2005 football season, to varying expectations, on Sunday in Miami, where Smith’s 80-yard reception from John Elway in 1999 was the second longest in Super Bowl history.
Smith, 35, now senior leader of the Broncos, begins his 12th NFL season optimistic that the team has addressed several weaknesses that have kept it from winning another playoff game since he and Elway connected on that day.
While Smith is in the Miami area, he will spend time with his two sons, who live in nearby Coral Springs. Smith will approach the weekend without getting too excited or overly anxious, but right down the middle.
“When I had some things in my life I had to work out, I’ve always played better,” Smith said. “Just because of the nature of this job. We have issues just like a fireman or a postman or a guy who works down here at the corner store.
“Real life, it can always be better; it can always be worse. Trust me, the way the economy is and with some of the events that have happened all over the world, there’s some people who are dealing with a heck of a lot worse stuff than what I’m dealing with.”
Chances are, Smith is nothing like the man next door. Raised welfare-poor but rich with love in a government-funded housing project in Texarkana, Ark., Smith went on to earn three college degrees and become the Broncos all-time leader in receptions.
This is a man who has seen too many lows, and experienced too many thrills, to let the upcoming weekend overly affect him one way or the other.
“As a kid, you knew he would turn out right,” said Mondo Barry, Smith’s friend since childhood, “because of all the kids in the projects, he was one of the only ones who paid attention to detail. And when he was told to do something, whether it was by his mom or coach or big sister, he was one who didn’t want to test you. The projects were full of kids always trying to get away with something. He wasn’t like that.”
Gradually, Smith has emerged as the primary voice of a Broncos team that is somewhat at a crossroads. Jason Elam has been with the Broncos two years longer, but there is only so much advice a kicker can give to, say, an offensive lineman. Tom Nalen is an offensive lineman who has been around as long as Smith, but the center doesn’t say anything, at least not publicly, except once every training camp. That leaves Smith – the most respected presence in the locker room and huddle.
“Sometimes, when the game gets tight, I look in his eyes,” said Broncos fullback Kyle Johnson. “All I see is, ‘Let’s do it, let’s find a way to win.”‘
The Broncos have won far more than they’ve lost (108-68) since Smith broke in on the practice squad in 1994, but lately they’ve fallen in a trend where they haven’t won quite enough.
After their back-to-back Super Bowl titles in the 1997 and ’98 seasons, the Broncos lost Elway and tackle Gary Zimmerman to retirement, the greatness of running back Terrell Davis to injury and much of their swagger.
Smith was a major contributor during those Super Bowl years, catching 70 and 86 passes, respectively, and he’s been an even greater force in subsequent years, piling up back-to-back 100-plus-reception seasons in 2000 and 2001.
But not once since Elway’s and Smith’s last game together in Miami has Smith relived the satisfaction of a playoff victory.
“It has been a little bit rough since 7 left, but at the same time it hasn’t been for a lack of effort or lack of trying,” Smith said. “I think with some of the changes we have made from a team standpoint and quarterback standpoint with Jake doing the things he’s doing right now, if we can keep that going for 21 weeks, it’s going to be a great year. I think at the end of the season we can be at the top of that pile again.”
Jake is Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer, one of two primary reasons Smith believes his team can get past that first- round playoff hump and ultimately play Feb. 5 in Detroit’s Ford Field in Super Bowl XL.
The other reason for Smith’s optimism revolves around the Broncos’ just-completed 4-0 preseason. In three preseason wins, the Broncos’ first team outclassed the opponents’ starters. In the fourth win, the Broncos’ second-stringers dominated Arizona’s starters.
“We had three major areas for our offense to focus on to get better in the offseason,” Smith said. “Doing better on third downs, not turning the football over and red zone. I really feel in the four games, all the snaps that we took, we did that.”
A team’s efficiency in those three key offensive areas always revolves around the quarterback.
Plummer is coming off a fine season in which he threw for a team record 27 touchdowns and 4,089 yards. But he also threw 20 interceptions, a weakness Plummer has worked on during the preseason.
“It was just so obvious, and it started on the first day of practice,” Smith said. “I think he threw three balls in the bushes. I was like, ‘Hey, he’s coachable.’ We joke about it, but those have a chance to be great plays for us because we still have the football. Little plays give you a better chance to make big plays.”
Big plays?
Smith burned Eugene Robinson to catch that Super Bowl bomb from Elway, but that didn’t do it. He caught passes last year that broke Shannon Sharpe’s team records for career receptions and touchdowns, but that didn’t do it, either.
Even if Smith hauls in a Hail Mary that moves the Broncos to Ford Field, it won’t beat the very first catch of his career. It was Sept. 17, 1995, and as the clock ticked down to 0:00 in the game against Washington at Mile High Stadium, Smith outleaped the great Darrell Green to catch the game-winning touchdown pass from Elway.
“When no one knew who you were, then to make your first catch that won the game, I replay that in my head a lot,” Smith said. “It drives me still to this day.”
Barry, who works the 7-to-7 shift at the Alcoa aluminum factory in Texarkana, understands why catch No. 1 always will be No. 1 because he knows where his best friend came from.
“The majority of the people where we grew up around our age, say five years younger, five years older, most of them turned left,” Barry said. “I would say from the people within a 10-year radius, probably only 10 to 15 percent turned right. Which means the rest of them at one time were locked up, or don’t have a job, or whatever.”
Smith, the third of five children living with mom while dad was nowhere to be found, and Barry overcame their environment to become exceptions.
Smith has three children, but he doesn’t have it all because they don’t live with him.
“That’s a hard thing,” Smith said. “At the same time, I’ll get to see my boys this weekend. My daughter lives in Missouri, and I talk to her just about every day because she has a cellphone. You want to be with them every day and be with them and watch them grow up and guide them. I just have to do it from afar.
“I do the best I can, and I work hard for them and try to instill work habits in them because I think that’s what’s going to take them further than anything else.”
Whatever problems the Broncos encounter this year, leadership won’t be among them.
Staff writer Mike Klis can be reached at 303-820-5440 or mklis@denverpost.com.
