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Brooke Pryor, ESPN employees author
PITTSBURGH — Danny Smith, a veteran Steelers particular groups coach, has taken various hits over the course of his decades-long profession.
The one he caught on the sideline on the finish of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ win over the Inexperienced Bay Packers on Sunday tops the listing of most painful collisions, he stated Thursday.
Smith, 70, who has lived in Pittsburgh since 2013, tore his proper rotator cuff in three locations and can want surgical procedure to restore it.
“I have been hit so much and hit exhausting,” Smith stated. ‘In consequence, I obtained quite a lot of metallic in my physique. I gotta be taught to get the hell out of my means.
“I obtained hit in school throughout a Clemson-Georgia Tech recreation. I suffered a tibial plateau fracture, had a plate and 6 screws put in my knee. I obtained that hit in coaching camp with [Antonio Brown] after I broke my ribs and my L1 vertebrae in my again. This one damage. I’ve a torn rotator cuff, three locations.”
Packers offensive lineman Zach Tom took a late hit on Steelers security Damontae Kazee after his interception on the play, and Kazee ran into Smith, sending him flying onto his proper shoulder. Smith stated his shoulder went numb and he was unable to rise up. As a scuffle ensued across the Steelers bench, tight finish Rodney Williams picked up Smith and eliminated him from the scrum.
“I simply noticed him laying on the bottom, he could not rise up and I noticed everybody coming in the direction of him,” Williams stated. “So I simply picked him up, tried to hold him out, simply to verify he was okay. …
“He tried to expire of there, however he could not actually transfer, so I simply needed to get my canine out of the pile.”
Smith, notorious for always chewing gum, didn’t lose the piece in his mouth throughout the collision. “I checked out him, he was nonetheless chewing on it,” Williams stated. “I do not understand how he did that, however hey, he was good.”
