GREEN BAY – Before each game, Preston Smith would pull his teammates in the Green Bay Packers locker room into a huddle, not just the defensive line or even the whole defense, but the offense, too.
The oldest player on the Packers roster had a hidden talent. He used it regularly, even as his media interviews decreased the past couple of seasons. When Smith started talking, everyone listened. His eloquence was galvanizing. So Smith started giving the Packers pregame pep talk years ago, and eventually he added postgame speeches to his duties.
“All of them,” fellow defensive lineman Kingsley Enagbare said, “felt like they came from a little poem book. We pretty much had our joke with him, like, ‘Dang it, what time you wrote it?’ Because, I don’t know. He’d say it was a freestyle, but it sounded too smooth to be a freestyle for me.
“The word usage. The story behind it. The tone. The mood. Everything was just perfect. I don’t think there’s been one bad P speech before a game since I’ve been here.”
The Packers won’t just need to replace Smith’s production rushing off the edge after sending him to the Pittsburgh Steelers for a seventh-round draft pick at the NFL’s trade deadline last week. And they won’t only be looking for someone to deliver the team speeches before and after games either. As the Packers returned from their bye week with a practice Monday, it’s difficult to encapsulate how much his influence meant for the NFL’s youngest team. “He was definitely the heartbeat,” receiver Jayden Reed said. “Everybody loved P.”
Smith’s impact stretched beyond Lambeau Field.
It was Smith who requested a trade a couple of weeks ago, hoping to find a better scheme fit for himself than defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley’s new 4-3 system. But Smith didn’t start the season looking for a way out. Before Week 1, he set up an NCAA college football video game league inside the Packers locker room. About half the roster joined. Smith was commissioner for one conference, Reed the other.
Smith used the group text thread last week to inform his teammates about the trade.
“You can definitely feel the missing piece a little bit,” Reed said. “The energy that he brought. It’s definitely a little more quiet, but I’m happy for him. New opportunity for him.”
Without Smith, defensive tackle Kenny Clark and defensive end Rashan Gary will take a bigger leadership role. Neither are new to guiding younger players, but Smith’s departure leaves Gary as the lone veteran at his position. Smith was especially important to Gary’s development as a young player, availing himself at all hours. Gary watched highlights of Smith as a high school phenom before playing college football at Michigan. When the Packers drafted him in the first round in 2019, he arrived at the same time Smith signed as a free agent. Gary said he would call Smith late at night, asking questions about specific pass-rush techniques.
Gary said Smith was an “open book.” He became a “big brother” for him on and off the field. Now he’ll be taking those late-night phone calls from younger teammates.
“Even throughout the season, things don’t go your way,” Gary said, “you’ve got to keep even keel. He’d always say it’s not as bad as it looks, and it’s not as good as you think. So just going back to tape, watching that mindset, having a guy who was able to pour into me, giving me things I could give to JJ (Enagbare), Lukas (Van Ness), whoever comes in, it’s great.
“I could keep going on and on and on and on and on about P and what he means to me, but he was a great part of my development.”
Smith is finishing the video game league with his Packers teammates, Reed said. But the Packers will have a void of snaps they’ll need to distribute on the field to close out 2024. Even if it was Smith’s idea for a trade, general manager Brian Gutekunst said he was enticed by the opportunity to provide more snaps to younger defensive ends. No different than cornerback Carrington Valentine’s snaps increased last season when the Packers traded veteran Rasul Douglas to the Buffalo Bills at the deadline.
Enagbare, whose 243 snaps in nine games account for 42.7% of the defense’s total, is among the young edge rushers who will have more playing time. Arron Mosby and Brenton Cox Jr. might also see a significant increase. Mosby had his first career half-sack before the bye, beating Detroit Lions right tackle Penei Sewell off the edge.
He said it was a surprise to be on the field. Mosby had played only two snaps in the first eight games, both against Jacksonville. Now he’s played seven. More snaps in the future won’t be a surprise.
Those snaps will allow Mosby to build on the momentum from his first career half-sack.
“It was kind of not planned,” Mosby said. “They just threw me out there. So it was kind of like a shocker to me, and then things went forward for me in a great way. So going forward, it was blessing. So now just the confidence I can do it in this league, and I did it on one of the greater tackles in the league, it’s a confidence booster. But from here, you’ve got to do it again in this league. It could be an accident. You never know. So I’ve got to prove it over and over again.”
Mosby said it was “devastating” when he learned Smith no longer will be in the Packers locker room. He wasn’t alone using the bye week to recover from the shock. But there are eight more regular-season games to play, and the Packers’ hopes for this season are unchanged
They’ll need more production from their unproven defensive ends to reach their desired destination.
“Step up,” Gary said. “Step up. Plain and simple. It’s a big opportunity. Everybody prays and asks for opportunities like this. The opportunity is out there, so lets make the most of it, and finish the season how we want to finish it.”