DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Armond Smith?

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If Jackson wasn't down I'd suspect Smith might make the practice squad. As things stand I think he makes the roster.

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Anyone remember the last time the Browns gave significant playing time to a rookie RB other than Run-William-Run Green? Sometimes this is how you find a guy.

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Heckert’s big find … meet the fastest man in Berea


At the time we wrote this, Armond Smith was a camp body. Now he has made the team … for now, at least. From the mid-point in training camp, here’s a look at the piece you may have mised:

• • •

Barely more than a year ago, the odds against Armond Smith pulling on an NFL uniform were preposterous.
The national deficit-to-1. Maybe worse.
Smith was 24 years old, destined for a future in his family’s corrugated box-making business — and business is good; customers include UPS, General Mills and Hallmark.
Football? He played. Sort of. Not only was he an old senior at Union College, an off-the-NFL-radar outpost in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky; his playing résumé was ultra-light.
He was a nobody on an NAIA team that had never sent a player to an NFL camp.
How on Earth he got on the field at Browns Stadium on Saturday night against the defending Super Bowl champs is one of those camp stories that makes you smile.

• • •
Watching Smith run is making fans and coaches smile in training camp. The young running back can fly. There seems little doubt that he is both the quickest and fastest offensive player on the team.
The fastest player on defense is rookie cornerback Buster Skrine. Smith loves being “the fast kid” and entertains any and all challenges.
“I haven’t raced Buster yet, but I told him, ‘Any time,’ ” Smith said. “Joe Haden wanted to race. I said, “Uh, Joe … we’ll save your legs.’
“Joe IS fast, though.”
Smith might be crazy fast. Maybe even Chris Johnson fast.
But not so fast.
• • •
Johnson was a first-round pick out of East Carolina. Smith was undrafted out of North Nowhere.
He wasn’t drafted. When undrafted prospects were being scooped up in a wild post-lockout roundup, nobody called Armond Smith.
A few days after undrafted guys first could be signed, one team finally called. It was the Browns. They’d looked over other guys and wanted some depth at running back.
About two seconds into that conversation, Smith said, “I’ll be there tomorrow.”
Smith grew up in Atlanta, then bounced around for a few years after high school. He landed at Union in the autumn of 2009.
“I was trying to get my life together,” he said.
He had made a name in high school in football and track and decided to try both at Union.
The track part was terrific. In the 2010 NAIA national meet, where Chris Sinick of Canton’s Malone University was one of the distance-running stars, Smith tore up the hurdles.
Spectators were astonished to watch him win a national championship in the 110-meter highs. He stands just 5-foot-9 — 69 inches. The hurdles are 42 inches.
“I didn’t have great coaching or technique,” he says. “I won because I was real fast between hurdles. Yes, I was the shortest guy in the race.”
He also helped Union win the 400-meter relay. It was the spring of 2010. It was way more fun than he had on the Union football team in the fall of 2009.
• • •
He saw some action as a defensive back, barely got on the field as a running back, and wondered if the coaches knew what they were missing.
Winning a national track title was good for his mental health. It almost ended his football career.
People started to tell him he had Olympic potential as a track man. Aaron Tucker, a coach from the University of Kentucky, wanted him to train with Rondel Sorrillo, an NCAA champion in the 200-meter dash.
“I was going to move to Lexington,” Smith says. “I was like … I’ve got one semester. I’m not worried about football.”
His father talked him back into football.
“My dad said I should play football,” Smith says.
He agreed, but didn’t count on starting at running back, behind an incumbent starter he respected.
“Then one guy got hurt. Another guy got the chills. I wound up in the second spot,” he says.
Remember, this was just a year ago.
• • •
He played four games as a backup, getting a handful of carries in each game. In his fourth game, it was five carries. The 130 yards he made out of those turned a few heads.
“Then before the next game, our starter woke up and his knee wasn’t feeling good,” Smith says. “I started and ran for 91 yards.
“The next week I woke up and said, ‘I’m gonna go get it.’
“I thanked my offensive line all week. Saturday morning, I got up and I prayed. I said, ‘God, just give me strength …’”
He ran 16 times for 312 yards and five touchdowns in an 84-55 win over Bethel.
Now, that will do something for a young man’s confidence. So did the fact he grew into a starting role and led NAIA football with 9.1 yards-per-carry.
It did little for NFL scouts. None called to schedule a private workout, which left Smith asking bigger schools if he could horn in on their Pro Days.
“I couldn’t find a Pro Day,” Smith says. “Nobody would let me in. It was very frustrating. I tried to go to Western Kentucky, Louisville … and Georgia, because I’m from Atlanta.
“Finally, Eastern Kentucky let me come. There was one scout there. Jed Collins, from the Browns.”
• • •
Smith is a longshot to make the team, on which the top three running backs figure to be Peyton Hillis, Montario Hardesty and Brandon Jackson. Don’t tell him. He’s getting married this fall. He’s telling his fiance to plan on living in Ohio.
He thinks he saw a sign the other day in the locker room.
“Some fan mail was being delivered to Montario,” Smith said. “There was a box. I looked and saw that it was a box from my family’s business.
“What are the odds?”

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He ran 16 times for 312 yards and five touchdowns in an 84-55 win over Bethel.

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Holy crap! 19.5 yards/carry and 5 TDS???????

I'd settle for that against the Bengals .....

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Love the speed. I just hope he can take 16 games of getting hit by NFL-caliber linebackers.

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LOL They gotta catch him to hit him

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And btw, I don't want him racing skrine or Haden or anybody... that's how you end up with a hamstring injury. Or cleated.

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Love the speed. I just hope he can take 16 games of getting hit by NFL-caliber linebackers.

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