Trey Smith review: Did the Chiefs get the steal of the draft?
Looking at what the new Chiefs guard does well, what needs work, and figuring out what his near future holds in Kansas City
(This article was originally written in May. In a Chief in the North first, I’ve updated it at the bottom based on the news that Smith is starting off with the first team offensive line at camp, and discussed how what we’ve heard relates back to what his college film shows. It’s a good day to be a Chiefs fan, so I unlocked it for all to read. Happy Chiefs training camp!)
Trey Smith was never supposed to be an option for the Chiefs in the 6th round.
The massive guard out of Tennessee (listed at 6’5” and 321 pounds in Dane Brugler’s “Beast” draft guide) was almost universally rated as a player who would taken significantly earlier in the 2021 draft. While grades varied, Brugler’s 3rd round projection for Smith was about normal for where people thought Smith would end up, despite having some health issues that teams might treat as a red flag (blood clots back in 2018).
However, he was indeed available in the 6th round, as teams (one assumes) played it conservatively in terms of medical concerns and allowed a decorated player to fall into the lap of Brett Veach and the Chiefs, who snapped him up and (seemingly) finished their total rebuild of the offensive line by grabbing a talented player late in the draft.
With Smith now in Kansas City, the task fell on me (what a tough job this is) to watch some of his college games and try to ascertain what the new guard brings to the table. As was the case with Creed Humphrey, I’ll look at various traits: Upper body power, lower body power, handfighting, lateral feet/agility/balance, awareness/intelligence, and athleticism in space. This is more useful than charting wins/losses when looking at the college level given the disparity in competition, though Smith generally faced top-notch competition in college.
Before we get started, I do need to acknowledge that Smith is ridiculously fun to watch play football, with a mean streak that jumps out at you.
Smith has a few plays in every game where he punishes a defender for daring to line up against him, and it makes it difficult to view Smith objectively on other snaps due to how much fun he is. Watching an offensive lineman impose his will and then tell his opponent about it is a great thing to watch.
Of course, linemen shouldn’t be judged by their peaks, they should be judged by their consistency and what they do each and every snap. And with that in mind, the evaluation of Smith gets a little more complicated. Let’s dive in.
Upper body power
Smith flashes elite strength in his hands, with the ability to get ahold of opposing defensive linemen and freeze them in place. He also often shows the ability to jar defenders off-balance with a punch, knocking them off their pass rush plan or pushing them out of a run lane. He also can move defenders bodily off their spot when he’s looking to generate movement without even having to drive his legs. His power in his upper body also allows him to make opponents pay when they come into contact with him without leverage. (at left guard below)
The initial point of impact is where Smith likes to win, and he relies on it regardless of the opponent.
It’s worth noting, however, that Smith’s elite power can come and go due to inconsistency with his pad level and utilizing his entire body to punch/engage. Smith has a tendency to rely on his brute strength rather than consistent technique, and it shows up against more powerful opponents who are able to get inside his pads and rock him backwards in a way one wouldn’t expect from a player with his power. (again at left guard below)
Here, Smith allows the defender to get lower and inside his pads (and is a bit slow off the ball, something we’ll talk about more later) and as a result he gets blown backwards rather than generating movement at the line. It doesn’t happen a lot with Smith, but it’s more frequent than one would imagine given a player whose bread and butter is his power. He’ll need to work on being consistent with utilizing his hips and keeping low at the next level in order to be consistently at his strongest.
The good news is that when he does get it right, Smith virtually never loses and often reduces opponents to flying bodies. Technique and consistency can be taught, but elite upper body power cannot.
Lower body power
Smith’s lower body power doesn’t flash quite as much as his heavy hands, but he’s a plus in this area as well. It shows up as a pass blocker when opponents try to drive him backwards, as he can recover his balance and reset due to being tough to move and having strong legs beneath him. It definitely shows up in the run game when he’s asked to participate in double teams or combo blocks (where he starts out assisting another blocker and then climbs to the second level). In those situations Smith often helps drive defenders so far out of the rush lane they have zero chance of making a play (left guard helping the center below).
Here, Smith and the center are able remove a defensive tackle far away from the play, to the point that they’re actually in the way of a cornerback who could close in on a tackle (though to be fair, that corner looked like he wanted absolutely nothing to do with that play!).
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The Chiefs have struggled to generate movement at the point of attack in recent years, even when utilizing double teams, and they haven’t been able to run a lot of gap run blocking looks in part because of this (though Reid generally has preferred zone schemes generally, they appear to be adding players who can run more gap, something we might look at later on this offseason). Smith is a partial solution to this problem if he’s able to win a spot on the field, as he definitely has no problem generating that movement.
Similar to his upper body, though, Smith does have some consistency issues with his lower body power. He doesn’t always get the push one would expect, and his play strength seems to ebb and flow throughout the game as his pad level/hips (seeing a pattern here?) come and go. The physical ability is apparent, and he’s a plus player here in a big way, but the inability to know which blocker will show up one drive to the next in terms of power (dominant or average) can be a bit frustrating.
Handfighting
This is an area of his game Smith has work to do. While Smith isn’t uncomfortable engaging with defenders and resetting his hands, he’s not consistent with his usage or placement and plays like someone who has been able to overpower most opponents his entire career. He finds himself overly reliant on that big punch, and if defenders aren’t knocked aside by that they have a good chance at winning the hand placement battle and getting more push against Smith than they have any right to.
Having an excellent offensive line coach in Andy Heck, as well as a myriad of interior offensive linemen veterans around him, should help Smith develop in this area. It might be where he can show the most improvement from college to the pros.
Lateral feet/agility/balance
What makes Smith such an appealing prospect is that while he has excellent power and size, he can also move well when asked to pull and get some lateral movement while looking for someone to block. (LG below pulling to the right)
This is one of those plays that shows where he can help in the run game in addition to his ability to be an earth-mover. Smith’s ability to play relatively light on his feet and hone in on a target, then deliver a BIG shot when he arrives shouldn’t be underestimated. And it’s worth noting as the defender tries to move around him here Smith shows the savvy to rotate his feet and continue the block from a new angle that allows the runner to move by. And the finish, of course, is just… well, it’s fun to watch.
Smith shows comfort moving either direction and pulling into space, and he’s also comfortable when asked to pass block on an island. He’s got good enough feet that Tennessee started him off as a tackle, though that’s definitely not where he belongs at the next level. He’s a good athlete that leans towards a great one when his size/strength is considered.
Where Smith can get in trouble in terms of balance is when he gets caught lunging or or over-extending himself trying to land a big punch. This happens both as a run blocker and a pass blocker, and resulted in some of his more ugly losses.
The issue that Smith has here is directly related to technique/handfighting issues, as he’ll need to learn to keep his feet underneath him when he delivers his punches and not lunge in an effort to deliver a “knockout” blow.
Awareness
Smith plays with a great deal of purpose, and that purpose is generally to hurt the opponent. However, he also knows where to be generally speaking and in particular provides good help when he’s left uncovered in pass protection, trying to dole out punishment to defenders who are already engaged with another blocker. (LG below)
This sort of ability to make defenders pay for not keeping their head on a swivel can have a domino effect across the line, and it’s fun to see Smith’s mean streak transfer to helping out in pass blocking.
Smith does show some patience when it comes to dealing with stunts and blitzes, but it’s an area he can work on as he at times seems to miss those developments if they take an extra moment to get to him. He generally stays home in pass protection, but can get caught up at times in 1x1 battles with an opponent and miss an incoming blitz or movement by the quarterback to a different spot.
Athleticism in space
Much like with his footwork and agility, Smith is surprisingly athletic for a blocker of his size and shows some ability to climb to the second level and lock on to defenders once he’s there.
Smith isn’t the athlete that Creed Humphrey is, and the Chiefs aren’t likely going to ask him to move extensively in space. But he can travel limited distances and mirror defender movements once he’s there, and his power allows him to affect smaller defenders in a big way if he’s able to make even some contact.
When one watches Smith perform in college it’s easy to see why he was thought of as a player who could be taken in earlier rounds. There just aren’t many humans on earth with his size/strength that also possess decent feet and the ability to move well. His ceiling is that of an elite guard at the next level, and he showed flashes of absolute dominance against top-tier competition while playing with an edge that fans will love.
However, he does have some edges that need to be ironed out in terms of technique and consistency if he wants to reach that considerable ceiling, particularly in terms of relying less on his own physical gifts and learning to do things the “right” way every single time. He’s a player who may benefit from taking a year to work out some of those finer points in his game, so it’s important that expectations in year 1 be tempered as he addresses those areas. If he does that, he’ll be impossible to keep off the field and just as hard for defenders to deal with.
UPDATE AS OF 7/28/21
That’s right, we’re doing late-breaking updates on stories now! One of the biggest pieces of news that emerged from training camp today is that Smith was with the first team offensive line when camp began.
That’s very, very interesting given Andy Reid’s history of favoring veterans (like Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, who was present and practiced with the second team at guard) over rookies. It’s also worth noting that Reid wasn’t just defaulting to the young guys, as Remmers held down the right tackle spot over Lucas Niang (who practiced as a LT with the second team).
What does this mean long term? Maybe noting. This is so early in the process that it’s impossible to draw a concrete conclusion. That said, my assumption was that Smith would have to drastically outplay LDT and/or wildly impress Reid and OL coach Andy Heck in order to get a chance to take reps with the first team (and make no mistake, every rep is a valuable one). Instead, we know that from day 1 he’s at the VERY LEAST rotating in with the ones and in a genuine competition with LDT for the spot while Kyle Long tries to get healthy.
Another interesting tidbit on Smith came from Reid today that hit on a very, very important word that relates back to the rest of this article: Consistency.
Consistency was where Smith struggled at times in college, and to hear Reid praising him for it this early as a reason for him to start off with the first team is highly encouraging.
As Reid noted, the pads aren’t even on yet. But the early returns on Smith are excellent to hear. If he really has managed to smooth out some rough spots already and demonstrate consistency in response to pro coaching, he’ll be very, very difficult to keep off the field.
This guy is going to go a long way toward erasing the last vestiges of Trezelle Jenkins from my brain
Heavy hands, ability to mirror and a nasty disposition.
That's the Treyfecta!