Browns pass rusher credits those who 'without them I wouldn't be Za'Darius Smith today'

BEREA — Za'Darius Smith's football career was held in the hands of about 15 young men.

Smith was a going to be a senior at Greenville High School in Alabama in 2010 when the itch to play football for the first time overtook him. So, during the summer, he went to Greenville's coach, Ben Blackmon, to see if he could come out for the team.

"He was like, 'Man, I've been trying to get you to play for years,'" the Browns defensive end recalled in an exclusive interview with the Beacon Journal. "'But it wouldn't be right if I let you come out there and the senior teammates, your senior teammate been there all spring, all winter or summer. They've been basically working and you haven't, you've been playing basketball.'

"So he was like, 'I want you to do something for me. I want you to go ask all the seniors in your class to play football if they would be cool with you coming out to play.'"

More than a decade later, getting that approval still resonates for the three-time Pro Bowl end. Up until that point, it was basketball, not football, that was Smith's love.

However, once football took hold of Smith, it didn't let him go. He rode that love to a college education — first at East Mississippi Community College, where he won a national junior college championship in 2011, before spending his final two seasons at the University of Kentucky, where he developed into a fourth-round draft pick of the Baltimore Ravens who blossomed into nine-year NFL vet.

"They always say, man, treat people nice, man, you'll get treated the same way back," Smith said. "I was never mean to those guys. Like I said, they always wanted me to come out and play football, but I never did. And for them to just go off of, yeah, he'll be good out here. It all worked out, man. And without them I wouldn't be Za'Darius Smith today."

Those 15 high school classmates, though, were just the start. They would be, as they say, the top of the funnel.

Jimmy Brumbaugh finds 'hungry' Za'Darius Smith at East Mississippi CC

It was during his two seasons at East Mississippi Community College that Smith met the coach who became one of the biggest influences in his post-high school life. In his second year there, in 2012, the school hired Jimmy Brumbaugh to coach the defensive line and help lead the strength and conditioning program.

The two hit it off immediately. It didn't hurt that, unbeknownst to either of them initially, Brumbaugh and Smith's cousin, Davern Williams, had been teammates at Auburn University.

Nor, to Brumbaugh, that Smith had a voracious appetite — both literally and figuratively.

"It was really interesting when I first met him because he was only about 240 pounds, and in junior college we didn't have much to eat," Brumbaugh said by phone from Conway, S.C., where he's currently the defensive line coach for Coastal Carolina. "He was always trying to get that cafeteria open to gain weight and do this and do that, but the thing of it was, like I said, he was always hungry. He always wanted to get better. He would always ask me questions and we would always go and do extra."

Their first year together at East Mississippi Community College was also their last one together there. It wasn't, though, their last one together.

Za'Darius Smith finds first dynamic pairing in Bud Dupree at Kentucky

Brumbaugh was hired in 2013 to be the defensive line coach on Mark Stoops' first coaching staff at Kentucky. He brought with him his prized pupil Smith, ready to step up his level of education on the football field to the SEC.

"A lot of times it's good that the guys don't have a whole bunch of bad habits, and he was a guy that didn't have a bunch of bad habits," Brumbaugh said. "But he had a skillset because he had length and he had good initial quickness and burst and so he had a good skillset. It was really learning the physicality aspect and different things.

"I think really at Kentucky when we moved him inside to play inside, it really helped him from a standpoint of being physical at the line of scrimmage, and it's carrying over to the National Football League."

Smith's two seasons at Kentucky coincided with the final two seasons of another eventual NFL pass rusher, Bud Dupree. With Smith rushing more from the inside and Dupree from the outside, the duo combined for 26 sacks and 36 tackles for loss over their two seasons in Lexington.

It wasn't the last time Smith found himself paired with a talented edge rusher. From Dupree to his new Browns teammate Myles Garrett, he's more than happy to have more edge rushers with him.

"I use that to my advantage," Smith said. "I would say having guys to compete with every day. Sometimes, a lot of guys come to practice and they don't want to practice sometimes. Guys get a little lazy when they get November, December sometimes, but I always had somebody to compete with me. If I didn't set the standard, that guy would set the standard that day and I would try to keep up with his standard."

Kentucky coach Mark Stoops sees a 'grown man' in Za'Darius Smith

Those early Kentucky teams under Stoops struggled to get their footing in the ultracompetitive SEC. Despite Smith and Dupree, the 2013 Wildcats went 2-10, while their senior season ended in a 5-7 record.

"I've seen him a little pissed off, banging some people on the practice field, maybe getting mad," Stoops said by phone from Lexington last week. "He would always pull it together quick. I mean, he's a serious guy. That's one thing that just because he's pleasant and he has a smile and you've got a great nature about him, he's very serious about his craft.

"And that's what you love as a coach. … You're going to affect somebody either in a positive way or a negative way every day, and those are the type of guys that I want around that are going to affect people in a positive way."

Part of that, Stoops said, is because of a certain maturity Smith brought with him to Kentucky. It was a maturity that belied someone who had just started playing football a couple of years earlier.

"What I always appreciated about him is I just felt like when you look at Za'Darius, you just feel like that's a grown man, even back then," Stoops said. "Certainly he is now after being a professional for so long. But at that point, and it was early in my tenure at Kentucky, my first years, and to have a guy come in and just the approach that he had, the work ethic, the way he carried himself, the way he was, he walked around and looked like a grown man and he acted like a grown man, and we needed that because we were far from a good team. But he certainly was a great, one of the first couple pieces to help us on our journey."

Za'Darius Smith matures as a pro as playing time grows with Ravens

It's been nearly a decade since Smith's journey took him from Kentucky to the NFL. It led him to Ravens, and he credits the likes of Elvis Dumervil and C.J. Mosley for being the early influences on transforming him into a pro.

Part of that, Smith acknowledged, was learning to deal with the circumstances. Over his first three years with the Ravens, he played in 42 games, but only started eight combined games.

Smith's fourth season in 2018, which was also his final one in Baltimore, was when the breakthrough started. He played in all 16 regular-season games, starting eight, while recording 8.5 sacks.

"Going into year four, I had the opportunity to play more," Smith said. "My first three years, I didn't get it. I struggled a lot with what I was just talking about, but year four it clicked for me and I think I led the team in sacks that year, man. And from then on out they've been up ever since."

Smith's journey took him in 2019 to Green Bay, where he was a Pro Bowler in his first two seasons. He recorded a career-high 13.5 sacks that season, then followed it up with 12.5 sacks in 2020.

A back injury sidelined Smith for most of 2021, and he eventually signed with the Minnesota Vikings, for whom he went on to a third Pro Bowl season with 10.5 sacks. However, the Vikings sent him to the Browns in mid-May, along with sixth- and seventh-round picks in 2025, for fifth-round picks in 2024 and 2025.

"Z, that's my guy," Browns defensive tackle Dalvin Tomlinson said early in training camp. "Yeah, his energy he brings to practice every single day is amazing. He helps the young guys with technique and things he's learned over the years on different teams, and he shares his knowledge like we all do and it's just great how he's still willing to learn and still a student of the game."

Cleveland Browns get a 'sage' version of Za'Darius Smith

The Smith who arrived in Cleveland is one who's no longer just hoping for his fellow seniors to approve of him coming out for the team. He's not the undersized community college lineman trying to add weight, or the NFL rookie trying to find his way.

Instead, Smith's the sage veteran, trying to impart the lessons of his own journey.

"When you're a younger guy, man, you don't have any patience," Smith said. "And as you get older, you know certain things are going to happen when it happens. And for me, I've had that. I've had certain times where they try to put me at a position where I wasn't comfortable with but, hell, I still had to learn it.

"I try to tell the young guys today, if they're trying to put a lot on your plate, you can get full off of it if you do it right. So you can make a lot of money. But, for me, I've learned that, man, and I took all my tools, I took all my tools and want to basically pass it down to the younger guys."

In a way, it's Smith paying things forward. It's paying forward the lessons he learned as a younger player himself in the NFL from players like Dumervil and Mosley.

It's paying forward the lessons of college. It's paying forward the teachings of Brumbaugh and Stoops and other coaches.

Maybe more than anything else, it's paying forward what those 15 or so young men in Greenville, Ala., did for Smith to change his life forever.

"I can't thank them enough, man," Smith said. "I need to get back home to do something for that Class of 2011. Those guys who basically helped me get to where I am today. Like I said, if they would've said no, man, I don't know where I'd be at right now."

Chris Easterling can be reached at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com. Read more about the Browns at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/browns. Follow him on Twitter at @ceasterlingABJ

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Za'Darius Smith credits high school teammates for opening path to NFL