In a Super Bowl without superstars, it fits that the most extraordinary game-breaker is a player with the ordinary name of Steve Smith.
Quick, which team?
The Carolina Panthers’ wide receiver-punt returner will be the most explosive player on the field Sunday. In a clash of defenses, Smith is instant offense.
Stephen Davis is the running back the New England Patriots will have to stop, but it’s the other Steve that the Patriots must corral the way they shut down Marvin Harrison in their AFC title victory over Indianapolis.
“An incredible run-after-the-catch guy,” Patriots cornerback Ty Law called Smith.
“Steve Smith is the heart and soul of their team,” Patriots safety Rodney Harrison said.
Law held Marvin Harrison to three catches while intercepting three himself.
“I’m not Marvin Harrison. I don’t put myself behind Marvin Harrison,” Smith said.
Few teams take away an opponent’s best players better than the Patriots. That’s the challenge Smith faces Sunday, but challenges are nothing new to a 5-foot-9-inch, 185-pound kid from South Central Los Angeles.
During his first season as a full-time receiver plus a punt returner, Smith’s 88 catches for 1,110 yards and seven touchdowns make him the most productive receiver in this game. But in three postseason victories, Smith has been even more dangerous, extending his average per catch from 12.6 yards to 23.1 yards. He has scored two touchdowns, including the overtime game-winner against St. Louis.
“You can’t let him get out into the open field or he’s going to make people miss,” Law said.
In a game between two of the most team-oriented organizations ever to match up in a Super Bowl, Smith remains the lone iconoclast, the emotional individual, the spark in the huddle.
Last year, he was suspended for a game after beating up a practice squad teammate in the middle of a video session in a meeting room. He was assigned to counseling and anger management and “learned a lot.”
“For a long time he was really down on himself, but now it bothers him that people still bring it up,” his wife, Angie, told the Charlotte Observer newspaper.
“Like most young men, they’ve made mistakes along the way,” Carolina coach John Fox said. “I think he has matured very quickly, and we see the benefits of all that now.”
Nothing matured Smith and other young teammates more than watching linebacker Mark Fields and linebacker coach Sam Mills both struggle with cancer discovered during training camp.
“They have showed us what it’s like to be a true man,” Smith said. “Football is just small, it’s marbles compared to what they’re going through.”
When Smith was going to high school and junior college in Santa Monica and working at a fast-food restaurant, he sometimes rode buses for two hours a day. But Smith is reluctant to lament his past.
“I get tired of sad stories,” he said.
Eleven years ago, Smith sat in the Rose Bowl for Super Bowl XXVII between Dallas and Buffalo.
“I’m a kid from the ‘hood. They gave the poor kids some tickets. They were in the end zone, but they were in the third row,” he said. “They put the poor kids on TV, so they put us up close.”
On Smith’s right bicep is an “S” that resembles a Superman logo. He says it stands for Smith. Half of the “S” looks blurred.
“The good side and the bad side,” Smith explained.
Carolina offensive coordinator Dan Henning, who has been around the NFL for 40 years, said: “Steve Smith, like a lot of players in this league, came up from nowhere. He came up from an environment where probably 75 percent of the guys he grew up with are still down and out. He has had to fight his way right through everything to get where he is. He is very emotional. He is very paranoid over certain things because of the way he grew up. I have had a couple of guys from that particular area. They are amazing guys.”
While paying homage to fellow receivers Muhsin Muhammad and Ricky Proehl, Smith knows he is the one who “every time I touch the ball, I can break it.”
“It brings a smile to my face and makes me snicker sometimes when I know the ball is coming to me and the corner has no clue what I’m doing,” Smith said.
Likewise, Smith hopes he always can return punts.
“It’s a high. You’re out there catching the ball and you have 11 people trying to knock your head off,” he said. “That is fun. You’re in complete control. They’re chasing you because you have this little old football, 300-pound men chasing you. No other sport in the world has this kind of thrill.”
Smith is the player most likely to break out in a wild end-zone celebration in this Super Bowl matchup between two businesslike teams. He even liked the controversial cell-phone stunt Joe Horn of the New Orleans Saints pulled, for which Horn was fined $30,000.
“I wouldn’t do that anymore because you’ll get in trouble. I was kind of mad. That’s original,” Smith said. “This game is fun. We work 12-hour days, and Sunday is our only day when it’s not business. When you’re on that field, that’s your happiness.”
The Patriots don’t want to see what might happen.
