With Bryce Huff out of the picture due to wrist surgery, Nolan Smith is one of the guys who will get some extra snaps in Los Angeles on Sunday. Nick Sirianni was asked about his second-year edge rusher at the midweek press conference:

What stands out to you about OLB Nolan Smith’s development? How big is he going to be over the stretch? (Tim McManus)

NICK SIRIANNI: What a guy that’s been able to handle the ups and downs. Not getting a lot of reps early on in his career because of the depth we had at that position, to now really being a big time contributor.

Patience. Patience of everybody. Hey, it takes time. If you’ve got the right people, like Nolan is – Nolan deeply cares about being good at football. Nolan loves football. Nolan is as tough as we’ve got. One of the toughest guys we’ve got on this football team. He plays as hard as anybody in the National Football League. And he’s got great skill.

When you have those characteristics as a person, God willing, you’ll reach your ceiling. I think he keeps getting better because of the skill he has and who he is as a person.

I think we want things to happen right away at all times. I’m guilty of that. I think we all are. But development and getting better every day, there is a process, and it takes time.

I think what you’ve seen is him putting his head down, working every day, regardless of what the circumstances are. And you’ve seen him get better. Now he’s contributing big time to our success.

Through preseason and the first couple of regular season games, it appeared as though not much had changed with Smith. He looked like an NFL tweener, too small to match up with pro tackles but too big to play as a linebacker and do Zack Baun and Nakobe Dean-type things. In a couple of cases, he was struggling to get by tight ends on the edge, which looked like a legitimate concern.

But Smith has been flashing a lot more lately. His four sacks have come during the six game winning streak, as have nine of his 12 pressures.

If you break it out with PFF stats, the 2023 and 2024 seasons look like this:

  • 2023 – 260 snaps (115 in run defense, 116 in pass rush, 29 in coverage), 12 pressures (four sacks, eight hurries), one batted ball, 11 tackles, 10 stops
  • 2024 – 203 snaps (84 in run defense, 95 in pass rush, 24 in coverage), nine pressures (two sacks, two hits, five hurries), 10 tackles, 9 stops

PFF defines STOP as tackles that constitute a “failure” for the offense, so you’re stuffing some guy at the line of scrimmage or sacking the QB. Smith really did not play a lot of snaps last year, so it took about 8.5 games this season to eclipse his rookie snap total, and therefore match and then exceed his first-year stats. Smith is on pace to finish with about 22 pressures and 7.5 sacks if you extrapolate his current production.


He’s been pretty good in coverage as well, when asked to do it, giving up two receptions on two targets for 12 yards and one touchdown. And if you recall the TD, it was in the Bengals game when Joe Burrow rolled out and had all day to throw. I’m not sure prime Champ Bailey would have stood a chance there. Smith, as a rookie, was targeted five times in coverage and gave up five receptions for 103 yards, so in more coverage snaps this year, opposing QBs have only thrown at him 6.8% of the time.

Obviously some better stuff from Nolan Smith in 2024. He hasn’t been Lawrence Taylor out there, but the patience has paid off a bit as we see glimpses of a young guy starting to figure it out.