Green Bay Packers: Best/Worst Case Scenarios for Za’Darius Smith

The Green Bay Packers targeted and spent a significant amount of money on Za’Darius Smith. Here are the best and worst case scenarios for his first season.

Za’Darius Smith was the first of four big surprises from the Green Bay Packers this offseason in regards to free agency.

The Packers were quiet on the first day of free agency, which led fans to express their frustrations about GM Brian Gutekunst doing things the same way Ted Thompson did.

Had those fans waited just a couple of hours, they would have saved themselves from takes that aged very poorly.

Smith was a player that the Green Bay Packers had targeted in the past, as Gutekunst had mentioned at a press conference this offseason that Smith was a player the team had tried to trade for at one point.

Za’Darius was brought in to give some punch to the Packers’ pass rush. He’ll start as an outside linebacker, and likely kick inside on passing downs to get other players on the field. He has succeeded the most as an interior rusher during his career.

At a minimum, he’s an upgrade to the pass rush group that the Packers had last season. The Packers see him as a young, ascending player and that’s why they spent the money and brought him in.

The contract he received, however, means that he has to deliver the kind of production and disruption that the team is looking for.

For his first season in Green Bay, here are the best and worst case scenarios for the year.

Best case

Smith steps in to practice and immediately asserts himself as a solid starter on the edge. He becomes a leader on a defense that is in need of a player to step into that role. In addition, he brings along some toughness that has become associated with the Baltimore defense but has been lacking in Green Bay in recent memory.

Smith does not take long in getting off to a fast start. He’s a chess piece that is used on the edge on early downs but becomes an interior terror on passing downs. He’s hard for the offense to game plan for and he makes plays all over the defensive line in Mike Pettine’s defense.

Health is a given for these scenarios as well, but Smith playing 16 games would be the best case scenario.

In terms of production, it appears that OLB Coach Mike Smith is prioritizing disruption more than he is actual sack numbers. With that in mind, Smith had 60 total pressures last season in Baltimore. That might be on the higher end of things considering the snap count he may face this season. While he is a starter, it appears the Packers are hoping to have a healthy rotation between their four edge rushers, and their defensive linemen.

By the end of the season, the Packers not only feel good about their investment in Smith but they feel as if they have a pillar to build the rest of their defense around. Smith is not only a player they signed out of desperation but is a long-term starter.

Worst case

Smith has nagging injuries and becomes a player that looks more like a one-year wonder than the young, ascending player the Packers hoped they were getting. By the end of the season, instead of looking like a pillar on their defense, he’s reminding the rest of the NFL of when the Chicago Bears signed Pernell McPhee.

McPhee was in a similar situation as Smith when he signed elsewhere. He was a younger player that looked like someone who just needed starters reps as he was trapped behind players in Baltimore like Terrell Suggs, but he was never able to live up to his big contract in Chicago. Injuries and ineffective play caused him to become a free agent bust.

Essentially, that is what a poor scenario would look like for Smith in Green Bay. Injuries and inconsistency lead to the Packers trying to find a way out of his contract in the near future.