Thomas Lee Smith (born December 5, 1970) is a former
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wit ...
defensive back
In gridiron football, defensive backs (DBs), also called the secondary, are the players on the defensive side of the ball who play farthest back from the line of scrimmage. They are distinguished from the other two sets of defensive players, the ...
in the
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ma ...
(NFL) who played for the
Buffalo Bills
The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division ...
, the
Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) North division. The Bears have won nine ...
, and the
Indianapolis Colts
The Indianapolis Colts are a professional American football team based in Indianapolis. The Colts compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) South division. Since the 20 ...
. He played
college football at the
University of North Carolina
The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sys ...
.
After being drafted 28th overall in the first round of the 1993 NFL Draft, Smith played primarily on special teams during the 1993 season.
He played in
Super Bowl XXVIII
Super Bowl XXVIII was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Dallas Cowboys and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Buffalo Bills to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for ...
for the Bills against the Dallas Cowboys. He became a starting cornerback for Buffalo in 1994, a position he would hold through the 1999 season. During this time, Smith became known as one of the top coverage cornerbacks in the NFL, but did not receive the Pro Bowl and/or All-Pro recognition his play deserved because of a lack of interceptions (at the time, advanced coverage statistics which would have benefited superb lockdown players like Smith did not exist, and his lack of interceptions was wrongly cited when he was seen as a good rather than great player). He left Buffalo following 1999 to sign with the Chicago Bears, where he played in 2000. He finished his playing career with the Indianapolis Colts in 2001.
References
External links
NFL.com player page
1970 births
Living people
People from Gatesville, North Carolina
American football cornerbacks
Players of American football from North Carolina
North Carolina Tar Heels football players
Buffalo Bills players
Chicago Bears players
Indianapolis Colts players
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