The road Aldon Smith traveled throughout the first stint of his NFL career was an incredible rocky one. Between multiple DUIs, felony charges, failed drug tests and a domestic violence incident, Smith's journey as an active player was tumultuous, to say the least.
However, as the former All-Pro outside linebacker shared with Jay Glazer of Fox Sports, he didn't hit rock bottom until after he was done playing football. He dove deep into his journey back to the NFL, as he currently awaits reinstatement to the league after the Cowboys offered him a contract.
Smith thinks he deserves a second chance after everything he's learned in his four-year absence from the league so that he can use "the platform that the NFL gives to be able to help out others." And after he opened up to Glazer, we now know what the "everything" is that he's gone through.
"2018 was a tough year... I was in a really dark place," Smith said. "I was sleeping under a car for some nights because my sickness took me there. And I had a home to sleep in. But I was in such a dark place that I didn't see myself deserving anything other than that."
Fortunately, it appears that Smith found relief talking to a therapeutic group co-founded by Glazer, the Merging Veterans and Players Foundation (MVP). The organization started in 2015, the same year that Smith played his most recent season in the NFL, by Glazer and Nate Boyer, who brought his dual experiences of serving in the military and playing professional football to help those afflicted with "the loss of identity, purpose, and community."
Several veterans and players have undergone the same therapeutic experience as Smith through MVP. Oren O'Neal, a former fullback for the Raiders, worked with Glazer's foundation, stating that "as a former professional athlete, people tend to see you in a certain way and don’t really respect your daily struggles, but MVP is different.”
While Smith has yet to be reinstated by the NFL, he certainly appears to have the support of many notable figures around the league and throughout sports media. Raiders star tight end Darren Waller reached out and offered assistance at any time, as Waller was another player who missed significant time due to substance violations.
However, there are also those who don't believe the Cowboys should have even proposed this opportunity. Damon Amendolara of CBS Sports Radio (see video above) questions how many chances a player should even get, citing that he believes "he puts others in danger constantly" outside of being a threat to himself.
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