Smith touches some raw nerves

Steelers Training Camp -- Day 17

By Gerry Dulac
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/
Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Peter Diana/Post-Gazette

Steelers safety Anthony Smith defends during drills yesterday.

There is nothing sensitive about the way Anthony Smith plays football. With a body chiseled from granite and arms that are pumped like radial tires, he launches himself, usually with purposeful aggression, in the direction of a wide receiver who ventures across the middle of the field.
Usually, the receiver is unsuspecting. Sometimes, as was the case last week, it is even one of his teammates.

"Sometimes, I'm just going to make a play on the ball and we meet at a point where we make contact," said Smith, a third-year safety from Syracuse.

In this instance, Smith chose to meet at a point and make contact with Hines Ward, who is only a four-time Pro Bowl wide receiver and the most-tenured Steelers player. The collision occurred Aug. 6, in the final practice before the preseason opener, in a 7-on-7 passing drill in which, typically, the most contact usually involves the ball hitting the receiver's hands.

It was Ward who lost the collision, collapsing to the ground after being hit by the 200-pound Smith and lying there, dazed, for a couple extra seconds.
"It wasn't a hard hit," Smith said. "It was just to put him on ground.

Perhaps.

But one of the offensive coaches screamed across the field at Smith, asking, in effect, if he were crazy. Defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau walked over to Smith and told him to be a little more judicious about which players he was hitting on the practice field.

In other words, hammering Willie Reid is one thing. Clobbering Ward is another.

"Coach LeBeau came over and told me you can't do that," Smith said yesterday before afternoon practice at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe. "I know you can't do that. It was something that happened. You got to know who you're hitting and just be cautious. You can't hit certain people like that."

"You can't really hit Willie [Parker] and Hines and Ben [Roethlisberger] and franchise players like that. You have to be careful with them."

Even coach Mike Tomlin, who benched Smith late in the 2007 season after he began allowing too many deep passes, said yesterday he had a problem with Smith hitting Ward in practice.

"Absolutely," Tomlin said. "We desire to be professional and practice with great professional etiquette. We understand we fall short of perfection. Sometimes that happens. This is a physical and emotional game played by those kind of people. But it doesn't necessarily make him a thug."

In a news conference attended by various media outlets, Tomlin said he was offended by a reference in a column written by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Gene Collier in which Smith's hit on Ward was characterized as "training-camp thuggery." The column appeared Saturday, after the preseason opening victory against the Philadelphia Eagles.

"He's very sensitive to it, and guys are sensitive to it," Tomlin said of Smith.
"His actions were referred to as 'thuggery.' We take offense to that.

"These are young professional people who are very good at what they do, who are very sensitive to how they are portrayed in the public light. I was offended by that reference. He's not a thug. He's a young professional football player ... who happens to play very physical."

Said Smith: "I never mugged anybody or robbed anybody. I got a clean record. I don't know how I would be classified as a thug."

He wore another quizzical look when it was suggested to him that the preseason game against the Buffalo Bills tomorrow night in Toronto could be a "telling" moment for him.

Smith, though, was unaware that it was Tomlin who used the word "telling" earlier in the day, indicating that Smith will get a lot of plays at free and strong safety against the Bills after missing more than a week of training camp and the opening preseason game with a groin injury.

"Not really," Smith said. "Everyone knows what I can do. I don't think I have to prove anything. I just have to go out and have a good solid game, coming off this injury."

First published on August 13, 2008 at 12:00 am