The Savior? Za'Darius Smith is out for vengeance (and a ring)

He's still pissed at the Packers. How things ended forever serves as fuel. A good thing for these Detroit Lions. They'll need "Z" — in full — to go on a Super Bowl run.

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ALLEN PARK, Mich. — Welcome to the museum. Walk through this Detroit Lions locker room and you’ll find countless relics declared too old, too damaged by other GMs.

No team has been ravaged by sprains and breaks and tears to this extreme. All season, general manager Brad Holmes and head coach Dan Campbell have Frankenstein’d a 53-man roster together. Despite 21 players landing on IR, they’re 13-2 with a real shot at both the No. 1 seed and a Super Bowl run. And it’s only possible with the heirlooms found on this bitter-cold day in December. “Northern savages,” Campbell calls the animals on defense.

Jamal Adams is relaxing in his locker stall. The safety who once basked in the NYC spotlight has endured more physical and mental torment than anyone knows. There’s bearded grunt Pat O’Connor, discarded by Tampa Bay. There’s Ben Niemann, on his fourth team since ‘23. David Long Jr. started this ‘24 season as a Dolphins captain and the beast within was fed again when they abruptly released him on Nov. 13. (Detroit did the same this week.) Ten-year vet Kwon Alexander supplied 29 snaps. (He was waived, too.)

On offense, you’ll see a grinning 11-year vet (Allen Robinson) who didn’t even make the Giants’ 53-man roster in camp. And Tim Patrick. All he did was overcome a torn ACL and torn Achilles in back-to-back years with the Broncos. And Dan Skipper. Wondering why this 6-foot-9 swing tackle is currently dominating at the ping-pong table? The fact that he’s been cut nearly two dozen times in his career probably helps. He’s been honing his back swing against most of the NFL.

Detroit’s vibrant pro scouting staff deserves a hefty Christmas bonus for finding the right ingredients week to week to week. Because two losses should’ve completely derailed this organization’s dreams: defensive end Aidan Hutchinson (tibia, fibula) on Oct. 13 and defensive tackle Alim McNeill (ACL) on Dec. 15. “Hutch” might’ve won defensive player of the year honors in a rout. McNeill, a total reflection of the Lions, is the game’s most disruptive interior rusher.

Which is why the highlight of this tour is the 6-foot-4, 270-pound specimen acquired to slam quarterbacks into the turf.

Za’Darius Smith is the preeminent “savage” who must star on Sundays.

He’s got the pelts on the wall — 72 sacks, 178 quarterback hits, three Pro Bowls. Most important? He’s still furious. Under this regime, the Lions have always treated their roster as more of a chemistry experiment that goes beyond size and skill specifications. Beyond film. Beyond analytics. More than any coach in the NFL, Campbell embraces the reality that football is a violent game. As such, its participants must be driven by something… extra.

Smith wants a ring. He got close in three straight years with the Green Bay Packers. “I want to be that leader,” he says, “who helps the football team go all the way.” But two teams standing in Detroit’s way just so happen to be two of Smith’s previous employers: the Packers and the Minnesota Vikings. So, he enunciates each word with baritone authority. He’s certain Holmes and Campbell wanted to infuse their defense with a player fueled by revenge — Smith is sure both knew that “Z is going to be on fire.”

He’s still exceptionally pissed at the Packers. You may recall Smith first opening up to Go Long in 2022 about how the team handled his back injury.

Turns out, he was only scratching the surface that conversation.

He has a lot more to say.

“It wasn’t right. I gave that team my all. They lied to me about my back,” Smith begins. “For a lot of fans who think I did wrong or was the mean guy in the locker room, that’s not my M.O. I’m not that type of player. I want to help my team win. But they didn’t know that story. And outside looking in, I’d be mad at me, too.”

He won’t forgive. He won’t forget. He’d love the chance to end their season. (Minnesota, too.) At 32 years old, Smith can go long stretches without dinging the quarterback. But even with the Lions — his fifth team in a decade — Smith has teased that he’s the rusher most-equipped to wreck a playoff game. One sack, one turnover is all this dynamite offense needs. Smith is well aware that the defense needs someone to put on the Superman cape.

The Packers hated when Smith opened up this wound in 2022, and they’ll probably hate it again. Smith doesn’t care.

This scar never healed, and that’s a good thing for the Lions.

They’ll need “Z” on fire.

The breakup never should’ve been so ugly. Z, at the price of four years, $66 million, was the player who proved GM Brian Gutekunst is willing to spend money to win. Z totaled 30 sacks with Green Bay. As the organization transitioned from Mike McCarthy to Matt LaFleur, Smith was exactly what those Aaron Rodgers-quarterbacked teams needed.

Then, without warning, the relationship deteriorated.

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It all began when Smith felt a sharp pain in his back weightlifting ahead of training camp.

Green Bay’s medical staff took a look and — per Smith — instructed the pass rusher to simply do more core work. They didn’t say anything about a bulge in his back. Smith knew there was something very wrong and wanted it fixed ASAP, so he sought a second opinion. Specifically, the opinion of a doctor many NFL players seek for back issues: Dr. Robert Watkins, an orthopedic spine surgeon in Marina Del Ray, Calif. This did not sit well with the Packers. Covid protocols remained stringent the summer of 2021, and Smith was unvaccinated.

Smith believes this is why the Packers did not want him to fly to L.A.

“I didn’t have the vaccine,” he adds, “so for me to leave the building, they didn’t accept that.”

Still, Smith felt the urgent need to have someone else examine his back. Watkins previously worked his magic with Rob Gronkowski and Jason Pierre-Paul. The Packers told Smith that he’d need to be back the next morning, which meant paying for a flight that’d fly him back that same night of his visit. (“I had to pay $70,000 to go make sure everything was OK with me.”) Out in L.A., Watkins asked Smith if he felt a pain shooting down his leg. He did. Watkins informed him that he likely had a large bulge on his back that was striking a nerve. (Which a scan confirmed.) When Smith asked the doctor why the Packers didn’t tell him this, Watkins’ blunt response was, “They’re not going to tell you that.”

“He kept it real with me,” Smith says. “From then on out, everything went downhill.”

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Smith flew back to Watkins to have surgery and wanted to stay out west for his rehab.

The Packers fined him each day he was gone.

“This is what the fans aren’t knowing,” Smith says. “It added up to a million dollars. They didn’t void it. They kept it because I wanted to leave and go check my back.”

When he returned, about a month after surgery, Smith felt like a pariah — “a nobody” — to everyone in the Packers building.

Since he wasn’t around for training camp, he wasn’t named a captain.

One day, his temper boiled over. On the carpeted hallway outside of the locker room, the Packers instructed Smith to run. They wanted to test out that surgically repaired back.

“Trying to rush me in back,” Smith says. “When I was running, I said, ‘What the fuck y’all doing? Why are y’all doing this?’ They gave me something to squat with. I got my stuff and I went home. I left. So that’s where the confusion came from: ‘Z ain’t a team leader. He just ditched his teammates.’ But the world’s not knowing.

“Nobody feels that pain but me. It worked out. If I would’ve stayed there, I wouldn’t still be playing football.”

Watkins shaved the bulge off of the nerve. Once the Packers acknowledged that bulge, Smith says, they wanted to take it out completely. And if that would’ve happened, he’s convinced his career would’ve ended in short order.

Nobody knew any of this in real time.

Droves of fans painted him as a quitter.

That 2021 season, Smith didn’t speak to the press. He figured it was best to keep his lips sealed to prevent himself from being too honest and becoming a distraction. Nor did he completely shut it down. Smith returned in time for the playoffs and even humiliated guard Laken Tomlinson to sack Jimmy Garoppolo in Green Bay’s divisional playoff loss to San Francisco. That offseason, he signed with the Vikings to stick it to the Packers. When we spoke then, Smith made it clear he had the Week 1 matchup circled on his calendar. “I put my back on the fucking line,” he said then. “And that Year 3, I was treated bad. That’s why I’m here now. So, I can play them twice a year.” Knifing criticism that came as a surprise given the traditionally conservative approach taken by the Packers’ medical staff. If anything, they’ve erred on the side of caution over the years.

That spring, Smith was already preparing the speech he’d give Viking teammates ahead of that Packers game.

Whatever he said worked to perfection. This fresh new chapter of Smith’s career started with a bang.

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U.S. Bank Stadium was deafening when Smith emerged from the smoke for Game No.1. The team’s P.A. announcer introduced Smith and teammate Danielle Hunter as “The Edge Department,” the crowd boomed and the Vikings D thoroughly slapped Rodgers around in a 23-7 win. On a third and 8 in the first half, Smith bench-pressed the right guard into the quarterback’s face for a sack and proceeded to crawl 6 ½ yards and scoop more pretend food into his mouth. Through his first nine games, Smith recorded 9 ½ sacks with a pressure rate of 20.8 percent. Both numbers ranked in the Top 2 of the 164 players who logged 100 pass-rush snaps during the same stretch.

However, his productivity dropped considerably the final eight games. Smith managed a half-sack the rest of the way with an 11.4 pressure rate. A knee bruise and sore elbow probably did not help.

Into the next offseason, the Vikings also faced major money issues.

He did the math. He knew GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah was crunching the contractual numbers on both himself and Hunter. Considering the money that Hunter wanted — and what he believed he was worth himself — Smith deduced that there was another team out there that’d pay market price. So, he beat the Vikes to the punch. In February, he prepared to sell his Minnesota home. In March, he tweeted a farewell that generated 7.9 million views.

“They were trying to say, ‘Z, we’re going to call you back. We’re going to try to figure it out.’ But they were trying to figure him out before they figured me out,” Smith says. “But my contract was already a three-year deal. Danielle Hunter was on this last year of this deal. So they were like, ‘Alright, we’re going to try to trade one of y’all.’ That’s how it happened. So I was like, ‘OK, you can trade me.’ That’s why I sent the message. I already knew that’s what they wanted to do.”

Animosity doesn’t cut nearly as deep with the Vikings. Smith has a ton of respect for their organization. He repeats that he loved his year with the Vikings — the “Skol!” chant ‘n all — but, of course, there’s a little added motivation here. There always is.

After 1 ½ years in Cleveland, Smith landed with another contender. He was pegged as the man to replace Hutchinson.

Perhaps it’s an impossible request.

Next to the quarterback, it’s hard to fathom a more devastating blow. Through five games, Hutchinson was on pace for 25.5 sacks and 58 quarterback hits. The former No. 2 overall pick was ascending into rarefied air occupied by only Myles Garrett and T.J. Watt. Next to Hutchinson, it’s hard to imagine a worse loss than McNeill. In October, he became the fourth-highest paid defensive tackle in the NFL at $24.25 million per year. Nobody’s more disruptive in the middle of a defense. And, oh. The player signed to apply pressure on the opposite edge, Marcus Davenport, was lost for the season in September with a torn triceps.

All of which severely hampered Detroit’s pass rush.

The Lions dealt a 2025 fifth-round pick and a 2026 sixth to Cleveland for Smith and a 2026 seventh-rounder. They assumed $605,000 of his base salary and have an out this spring if they’d like to move on.

In explosive spurts, Smith has proven he can give this defense exactly what it needs. His first game, on fourth and 7, he lined up inside and trashed center Mitch Morse with a swim move to sack Mac Jones in a 52-6 blowout win. On Thanksgiving Day — 36 seconds left, lined up wide, momentum swinging Chicago’s way — he rushed untouched to sack Caleb Williams and trigger the worst clock management of the 2024 season. And then, on his first play against those Packers, Smith KO’d right tackle Zach Tom with power to hurl quarterback Jordan Love to the turf.

Immediately, he army-crawled on all fours… pretended to shovel food into his mouth… jolted to his feet to flex his biceps. Ford Field erupted.

The Lions held to win, 34-31. Beating Green Bay was personal.

Back when our first story on Smith went live, head coach Matt LaFleur told the local media that he “respected the crap out of Z as a player,” but added: “I think we may have a different perspective of how things transpired.” When this quote is relayed to Smith today, he scowls and says he’d love for LaFleur to explain that “perspective” to him.

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Here in Lions Country, it took all of one game for defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn to describe both Smith’s personality and energy as “out of this world,” adding that his violence fits the nature of the entire team.

At the line of scrimmage, Glenn loves how Smith uses his hands to waste both guards and tackles.

“That’s his superpower,” Glenn said then, “how violent his hands are, and you really never get to know that until you get up to a person and really see it. Dan does a really good job of having these 1-on-1, competitive periods and we have the O-line against the D-line. When I first saw it, I was like, ‘Woah.’ And listen, he’s going to impart anything that he has that can help the young guys. The week that he didn’t play with (Josh) Paschal, he was in there coaching him. And he does that on an everyday basis.”

Of course, this unit started to break bad the second half of its win over Green Bay on Thursday Night Football. Over a six-quarter span, the Lions allowed 72 points and registered only one sack. Last week’s win over the Bears stemmed the tide but there should be concern. Distilled to simplest terms, winning NFL games is all about 1.) supreme quarterback play and 2.) harassing the quarterback. With Jared Goff, the Lions are fully equipped to score points in bunches. They’re averaging 32.9 points per game (first in NFL), 408.6 yards per game (second) and rank second in DVOA.

We can all fully expect the team’s riverboat gamblin’ head coach to take more risks than ever before to compensate for a flawed defense.

Without question, they’ll need some semblance of a pass rush to go the distance. They’ll need Smith.

It should be noted that the respective pass rushes in Green Bay and Minnesota are heating up. It’s hard to say how many snaps Smith would even get with either of his former teams. A week ago, Rashan Gary ‘n co. put Spencer Rattler in a blender. And we know madman Brian Flores has something special cooked up for the playoffs.

Earning homefield advantage would be massive. These Lions would love to bait a pair of NFC teams into track meets at Ford Field. Smith is about to play the most important football games of his life. First up, the San Francisco 49ers. Campbell’s crew has a chance to take Kyle Shanahan’s Old Yeller of a football team out back to exact a small slice of revenge for last year’s NFC title loss. Then, the Vikings come to town. They’re the healthiest, most complete team in the conference.

Sam Darnold is playing like a quarterback worthy of the next giant quarterback contract.

The pass rusher Minnesota let walk must be the difference.

When a player is switching teams to this degree, it’s typically not a good sign. Smith insists that he has genuinely reshaped his perspective. He doesn’t care how many snaps he plays. (“It’s all about playing a role with this football team. That’s why this football team is so great.”) He’s not stressing about the very real financial ramifications ahead. Two more sacks will give him 10 for the season and a $250,000 bonus. Four more sacks would pay him a $500,000 bonus. And if he reaches either incentive, Smith earns an extra $250,000 for Detroit reaching the playoffs.

Deliver in the postseason, and he can expect a nice slice of pie, too.

Smith has every reason to convince the Lions to keep him around next season.

“Look, man. It’s not even about the money anymore,” Smith says. “It’s about winning. Getting that ring. I’m still bringing an impact on the football team at the age of 32. So, it’s pouring into the younger guys like Paschal. He went to Kentucky. I played with his brother. It’s being a leader to those guys and passing it down like how the older guys passed it down to me. Terrell Suggs, Elvis Dumervil.”

He knows if the others up front — Josh Paschal, Al-Quadin Muhammad, etc. — see him doing extra work after practice that they’ll adopt the same approach. During film sessions, he’s trying to point out all hidden glitches in protections. Even as one of the new guys, Smith is embracing a leadership role. And why not? He’s been through a lot in his own life. He can still remember all of his mother’s valuable lessons. Sharon worked at Butler County Correctional Facility. So when Smith’s older friends got themselves locked up, she made her eighth-grade son sit in the cell with them for a half-hour. The tiny bunk beds. The disgusting lunch. Seeing five dudes share toilet. All of it showed “Z” that he never wanted to end up in prison.

This day, he’s asked what specific turning point replays in his mind ahead of this defining moment of his football life. Smith stares ahead, squints in silence as music pumps through the locker room and pinpoints his decision to attend East Mississippi Community College. After playing all of one season of high school ball, Smith barely knew anything beyond simple technique. He credits the team’s defensive line coach, Jimmy Brumbaugh, for teaching him the sport itself.

“That moment right there changed my life,” Smith says. “If I would’ve went anywhere else, I probably wouldn’t have got the coaching that I wanted. Probably wouldn’t have gotten the love and the father figure that I got from him in junior college.”

Once Brumbaugh was named the D-Line coach at Kentucky, it was an easy choice. Smith had never been to the school, never met the coaches but knew he needed to follow Brumbaugh. It worked out.

Eleven years later, Smith truly believes he’s here in Allen Park, Mich., for a reason.

Dan Campbell has been a kindred spirit. He wants a coach who’s red in the face, popping veins in his neck, dropping F-bombs.

“Some of the stories that he tells, man, it gets you pumped up,” Smith says. “It gets you going crazy. I’m happy to be here with this group and hopefully I can be here for the rest of my career.”

The reason Campbell went full Macho Man Randy Savage on 97.1 after Detroit’s loss to Buffalo is that his Detroit Lions have a realistic chance to win their first championship since 1957. He’s been in the NFL as a player and a coach since ‘99 — Campbell knows damn well that such an opportunity can be fleeting. One timely sack, one forced fumble, hell, one pressure on third and 7, may be all it takes to win games.

Like his coach, Smith instantly embraced everything Detroit.

Ahead of his first game as a Lion, he rocked a Rasheed Wallace jersey. A homage to the scowling, snarling, foul-mouthed power forward who helped propel the 2004 Pistons to championship glory. Smith will gladly take a bite out of that molded bread and pour everything he has into his 40 to 50 snaps. He’s aiming to have the same effect as his doppelganger on the hardwood.

And if he has it his way? Za’Darius Smith will face those Green Bay Packers along the way, too.

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