Za’Darius Smith’s bruised knee was aching, he already had two sacks and yet Kevin O’Connell had one more request of the veteran outside linebacker late in the Vikings’ 34-26 victory over Arizona on Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium.
With the clock ticking down and the Cardinals trying to put together a last-minute scoring drive, the Vikings’ coach told Smith, “I need one more.”
Smith didn’t disappoint.
Arizona, facing a second-and-10 with the ball at the Vikings’ 37-yard line, was unable to stop Smith from getting to Kyler Murray for a 7-yard sack that essentially ended the game, earned Smith a Game Ball and helped the Vikings improve to 6-1.
It also continued to make the Vikings’ decision to sign Smith to a three-year, $42 million deal last spring look like one of the better moves made in free agency. Smith, who spent plenty of time tormenting the Vikings the past three seasons as a member of the Packers, came with a risk that more than a few teams didn’t want to take.
He played in only one regular-season game in 2021, undergoing back surgery in September after an attempt to rehab the injury in training camp didn’t work. The 30-year-old returned for the Packers’ playoff loss to San Francisco and had a sack in the game, but Green Bay decided to cut Smith in March. He appeared headed back to his first NFL team, the Baltimore Ravens before that deal fell apart.
The exact details of why Smith ended up in Vikings purple instead of Ravens purple remains a bit of a mystery but no one in Minnesota is complaining. Smith’s three sacks on Sunday put him among the NFL leaders with 8.5 on the season, five coming in the past two games.
Smith is no stranger to the 3-4 defensive scheme the Vikings adopted this season and his comfort with moving around and applying pressure from different spots has made him difficult to block.
The mobile Murray became the latest quarterback to find this out.
“It’s huge because it’s really hard to have a protection plan for a guy that can be in any one of five spots up front,” O’Connell said. “We can use him to manipulate the protection call, if we want. We can use him to try to isolate somebody in protection, if we want.”
Smith’s got his first sack on the final play of the first quarter with the Cardinals trying to convert on third down. His second sack came on a second-and-11 with the ball at midfield, turning it into a fourth-and-impossible. Smith had to leave the field late in the opening half when he bruised his knee but he was out for the start of the third quarter. He limped off the field again after the last play of that quarter but quickly returned.
“I went down on my knee,” he said. “I don’t know if everyone knew about it, but I had a slight little knee injury week two or week three but fell on it and I felt it, but it went away. Came back out there as you can see.”
Smith’s presence on the field is important because it appears teams have decided to put their focus on trying to stop pass-rushing linebacker, and defensive end, Danielle Hunter. Hunter has only three sacks in seven games this season after recording six in seven games last season before a torn pectoral muscle forced him out.
Smith, meanwhile, is aiming to surpass the career-high 13.5 sacks he had in 2019 with Green Bay. He followed that with 12.5 sacks the next season.
Smith’s production also is coming at a bargain rate. His base salary is only $1.45 million this season, according to Over The Cap, and his salary-cap hit is $3.2 million.
The Vikings could be in a position to save substantial cap space by cutting Smith before either of the next two seasons, but his current production makes that unlikely. His base salary for 2023 is $9.45 million with a $14.2 million cap hit and that goes up to $14.45 million with a cap hit of $21.7 million for the final year of the deal in 2024.
Smith and the Vikings aren’t worried about that at this point. Not with the Vikings sitting five games above .500 but still trying to get recognized. Smith said he hates “that people are still not talking about us,” but that could change in the coming weeks. The Vikings will play at Washington next Sunday before facing the Bills, who many expect to make it to the Super Bowl, on Nov. 13.
A Vikings defense that has done plenty of bending, but little breaking will need to continue to have chemistry in those two games. Smith, whose upbeat personality has brought a breath of fresh air to a roster that needed it, acknowledged that is part of the reason for the Vikings’ success.
“I feel like it’s the chemistry, just off the field,” he said. “When we get a chance to be with each other off the field, it can be the little things, playing a game with each other. If we continue to do that and learn each other’s weakness and what we’re good at and have coach see it and give us an opportunity to go and beat our one-on-ones, we can be a great football team. As you can see, 6-1, it’s a great feeling.”
