Former Kansas City Chiefs cornerback Sean Smith has served his time and has been reinstated by the NFL, making him a free agent once again.
According to NFL reporter Aaron Wilson, a familiar face has joined the chorus of free agent cornerbacks on the open market with the news that the National Football League has reinstated Sean Smith.
Smith was sentenced to a year in prison for felony assault last March. He was released from prison last August after serving only several months, but the NFL forced him to sit out the entire 2018 season. Now the league has cleared him to return for the 2019 regular season, should a team have him.
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It’s that last part that’s quite a stretch at this point. It wasn’t that long ago that Smith was a solid starting cornerback for the Kansas City Chiefs. However, his play slipped to the point of being benched by the Oakland Raiders after signing a big money deal, and that’s before he was, of course, arrested for stomping on another man’s head.
Smith is, at this point, going to be 32-years-old by the time the regular season begins and will have spent the last year away from the game. He’s a public relations hit and aging cornerback hoping for another chance when he didn’t look great the last time he played. All of this equals a steep uphill climb to claim an active roster spot next September.
Stranger things have happened, however, and Smith has started as many as 8 games in a season as recently as 2017. Perhaps a team will give him a chance and find a nice surprise, but it’s more likely that Smith will be reinstated only to struggle to find any meaningful work.