Mike Smith doesn't do half speed.
As a seventh-round pick of the Ravens in 2005, the young middle linebacker from Texas Tech flew full tilt into a fullback in training camp just to get the legendary Ray Lewis to finally acknowledge him with a smile, a headbutt and the words, "Now, you're one of us, kid!"
As a 40-year-old, well-respected outside linebackers coach, Smith goes all out as mentor in the sciences of "rushing violently" and setting the edges on a 3-4 defense "as men who are born an oak and not a willow."
As a doting father of three kids who wanted a treehouse in Green Bay last summer, the former Packer-turned-Viking inadvertently hurtled his 240-some-pound self into Mother Earth.