The Hitman Didn’t Have to Hunt His 40th

The Colts had 1:15 left, down six, with a chance to steal one in Minnesota. Daniel Jones had just found Josh Downs to get the final drive moving. Then, on the very next snap, Jones looked right for Will Mallory. Harrison Smith was already sitting right in the throwing lane.

He was between the right hash and the numbers, with Mallory behind him. Jones threw it anyway. Smith picked it off at the Minnesota 44 and gave the Vikings the chance to kneel out a 16-10 win. Later, he jogged to the 40-yard line and planted the ball there. That was career interception No. 40.

Let’s be honest: Jones gave him a gift. It was a tough pass to explain with Smith sitting right in the way. But a quarterback’s mistake doesn’t turn into a takeaway on its own. Smith still had to read the throw and finish the play. That’s what he’s been doing for 15 seasons.

Afterward, Smith called the pick “nothing exceptional.” He’d talked with Richard Sherman that week about interceptions and came away with a simple idea: You can’t chase them. Do your job, and the chances will come. That’s a pretty good explanation for a play that looked almost too easy.

The real work happened before the ball ever came out.

And Smith’s job these days looks a little different. At 37, he’s playing about half of Minnesota’s defensive snaps. Earlier against Indianapolis, he blitzed and shared a sack with Dallas Turner. Late in the game, he was sitting in the exact space Jones wanted to attack. Brian Flores can still use him in both roles, and Smith can still process the game quickly enough to make those snaps matter. That’s a big deal for a defense that blitzed Jones on 85.2% of his dropbacks, the highest rate in a game in the Next Gen Stats era.

The interception gave Smith 40 for his career to go with 22 sacks. Since sacks became an official stat in 1982, Ronde Barber and Charles Woodson are the only other players to reach 40 interceptions and 20 sacks. That company says plenty about the kind of career he’s had: he's one of the best Swiss Army Knives this league has ever seen.

Minnesota needs that kind of player right now. The Vikings are 6-0 despite scoring just 125 points, tied for the second-fewest points by an unbeaten team through six games since 1950. Their defense has given up only three fourth-quarter points all season. A lot of these games are going to come down to one bad throw, and one defender who’s ready for it.

Smith doesn’t have to be the player he was at 27. Minnesota just needed one more good read from him with 1:15 left. He gave them one.

All stats courtesy of Fantasy Points Data.

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