ALAMEDA, Calif. -- Perhaps the only things bigger than Aldon Smith's tantalizing gifts on a football field were the demons that haunted him off of it.
A somewhat surprising early pick of the San Francisco 49ers in the 2011 NFL draft given his relative youth (he was a 21-year-old redshirt sophomore) and questions about his quirky personality (how would he fit in an NFL locker room), Smith burst on the scene as a sack machine with a record 33.5 sacks in his first two NFL seasons.
Smith was the NFC's counterpart to the Denver Broncos' Von Miller, who went second overall in that same draft, and many wondered if the Niners actually got the better player.