Meet at the Quarterback 2.0: Za'Darius Smith and Danielle Hunter Can Be an Elite Duo
Back in January 2020, Za'Darius Smith and Danielle Hunter got a chance to spend some time together at the Pro Bowl in Orlando. The two NFC North rivals were coming off dominant seasons in which they finished first (Smith) and second (Hunter) among all NFL defensive players in pressures. Both had helped lead their team to a postseason win before falling short of the Super Bowl.
Smith and Hunter weren't meeting for the first time. They overlapped in the SEC in 2013 and '14 — Smith at Kentucky, Hunter at LSU — and were in the same 2015 draft class, so they went through the combine together. Five years later, coming off career-best seasons, the Pro Bowl gave them a chance to reconnect and talk. It also gave them a chance to imagine a future as teammates, as unlikely as that may have seemed at the time.
"I got a chance to sit down with him and talk to him and he was like, 'Man, you never know Z, we may end up on the same team,'" Smith said on Tuesday. "And it’s crazy that I’m saying this but he really said that and he actually signed a jersey and it has that on the jersey from 2019."
What was once a fun idea between competitors is now a reality. The Vikings signed Smith to a three-year, $42 million deal this week, in what is the first big splash by new general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah. Hunter's $18 million roster bonus was picked up and then restructured to make room for Smith, ending any speculation about a potential trade. Barring anything unexpected, they'll be teammates for at least the next two seasons.
It's a duo that projects to be immediately disruptive and directly influence winning. Both Smith and Hunter come with health concerns, but whenever they're on the field together, they'll give the Vikings two elite pass rushers who can be moved around the front to create mismatches and wreak havoc.
"What Z has put on tape for his whole career is the ability to affect the passer," said Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell. "Affect the passer from a variety of different spots, schemed up ways, sometimes you can just turn him loose. I’ve watched him end a lot of football games with his ability to go get the quarterback. You get a lead, you allow him to play with that lead. Him combined with Danielle, we feel like that gives us a really, really impressive duo that can help do a lot of things defensively in how we’re trying to build things."
They took different paths to get to Minnesota, but Smith and Hunter share a journey with some similarities.
Smith grew up playing basketball in Alabama and didn't give football a shot until his senior year of high school. He spent two years at East Mississippi Community College — the school famous for being featured on the Netflix series "Last Chance U" — and then transferred to Kentucky. After recording 11 sacks in two seasons, he was drafted by the Ravens in the fourth round in 2015. Smith developed into a solid contributor in Baltimore, then broke out as a star with the Packers.
Hunter didn't play defensive end until he got to high school in the Houston suburbs. He was a big-time recruit coming out of high school, although he wasn't ranked as a top-25 player in Texas or a top-150 player in the country. After recording just 4.5 sacks in his entire LSU career, he was drafted in the third round by the Vikings, 36 picks ahead of Smith. Hunter started out as a rotational player in Minnesota, cracked the starting lineup in his third season, and eventually became the youngest player in NFL history to reach 50 career sacks.
Adversity, in the form of significant injuries, has hit Smith and Hunter in the two years since that Pro Bowl meeting. Smith had another dominant season in 2020, but missed almost all of last year with a bulging disc in his back. Hunter missed all of 2020 with a herniated disc in his neck and then saw his bounce-back 2021 campaign cut short by a torn pectoral muscle.
Heading into 2022, both are feeling healthy and motivated to prove, once again, that they're among the very best pass rushers in the league.
"I’m as healthy as ever," Smith said. "Just did my physical, everything’s clear. Back is good. I'm hungry."
"I feel great," Hunter told a Houston reporter. "The last two years were pretty unfortunate, but I've just gotta stay positive and have positive people around me. My family's been there, my coaches have been there, so I'm ready to go this season."
When Smith was released by the Packers earlier this month for salary cap reasons, the Vikings seemed like a logical fit. They're moving to a 3-4 defense under coordinator Ed Donatell and hired two people who worked closely with Smith in Green Bay: former Packers DC Mike Pettine (now Minnesota's assistant head coach) and outside linebackers coach Mike Smith (who holds the same role with the Vikings). But those hopes were quickly dashed when Smith agreed, in principle, to a four-year deal to return to the Ravens.
And then, surprisingly, that deal fell through. Smith was available again, and the Vikings quickly pounced. They brought him to Minnesota for a visit, Smith was sold on their vision, and he signed a contract the next day.
"Things didn’t work out [with the Ravens]," Smith said. "And in my heart, I just wanted to be somewhere I knew the coaching staff and I didn’t have to go that far, three hours down the road. Coming into the building, it just felt like family. It just felt like home to me."
One stop on Smith's tour of the Vikings' facility in Eagan was the Vikings Museum, which puts the team's storied history on display. He learned about the Purple People Eaters, the famous defensive line of the late 1960s and '70s consisting of Alan Page, Carl Eller, Jim Marshall, and Gary Larsen. The group's slogan was "meet at the quarterback," so Smith tweeted those four words on the evening of his visit, before it was clear that he would be signing a contract.
"I got a chance yesterday to go to the museum and they were just telling me a lot of things about a lot of history here, and they were like 'These four guys right here were in the Pro Bowl at the same time [in 1969],'" Smith said. "I was like, ‘No way.’ And it said Purple People Eaters and I was like OK, meet at the quarterback. That’s a slogan that we can keep going here."
The Vikings have had some great defensive lines and pass-rush duos over the years since the Purple People Eaters. Chris Doleman and Keith Millard, Doleman and John Randle, Kevin Williams and Lance Johnstone, Jared Allen and Brian Robison, Everson Griffen and Hunter. Smith and Hunter have a chance to be up there with the very best of them if they're able to stay healthy.
What stands out about Smith and Hunter is the flexibility their presence will give Donatell and the rest of the Vikings' defensive coaches. Hunter can line up on either side of the formation or do damage from the interior, like he famously did against the Saints in the 2019 wild card round. Smith's time in Green Bay epitomized versatility, as he frequently acted as a "rover" who moved around the formation and attacked the offensive line's weakest link. Pettine and the Packers had a play called "Z Green Bay" that gave Smith free rein to pick any gap or man to attack. With Pettine now in Minnesota, it's fair to assume the Vikings will give Smith (and Hunter) similar freedoms at times.
Both Smith and Hunter are virtually unstoppable 1-on-1. They're long, powerful, explosive pass rushers who use film study and a deep package of moves and counters to win their matchups. Because opposing offenses will have to account for both of them, that will open up 1-on-1s for defensive linemen like Harrison Phillips, Dalvin Tomlinson, and Armon Watts. They'll also make life easier on the Vikings' secondary by living in the backfield, and they'll be a great influence on the Vikings' young edge rushers. Make no mistake, if Smith and Hunter can stay healthy, this will be a hugely impactful signing.
"It's going to be fun," Smith said. "I talked to Danielle Hunter yesterday and I told him that I may be coming here and signing, and he was like 'OK, now we can be one of the best duos in the league.' Being excited about that, a lot of quarterbacks, they're going to have to fear us."
Many decades ago, the Vikings' Purple People Eaters went into every game expecting to meet at the quarterback. Starting this fall, Smith and Hunter are planning a few meetings of their own.
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