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'He still has it’: Cowboys DE Aldon Smith left an impression on his trainer after a month of workouts

Smith, who hasn’t played in an NFL game since 2015, was reinstated by the league earlier this month.

Brandon Tucker is measured when describing where Aldon Smith stands.

The Plano-based trainer, who’s worked with the Cowboys defensive end for the past month, said Friday that Smith could play a modest 15 to 20 snaps if the NFL season began today. Tucker believes the right approach for the Cowboys to take, come training camp, is to ease the former Pro Bowler into practice as they would an injured player.

It is in Tucker’s grounded, reasoned tone that his expectation for Smith during a tentative 16-game 2020 season carries weight.

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“Double digits,” Tucker said. “Double-digit sacks.”

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There are high hopes again for Smith on the field, and those exist only because of the progress he’s made off it. After alcohol abuse and legal issues halted his career in 2015, Smith was awarded NFL reinstatement last week. On Tuesday, he began participating in the Cowboys’ virtual meetings between players and coaches.

Smith moved from Los Angeles to Dallas about a month ago.

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Because he was based in the area upon reinstatement, he was permitted to take a physical Wednesday at The Star in Frisco and be outfitted for a helmet and shoulder pads, a source said Friday. Smith also separately met up with various Cowboys defenders this week for a workout.

An introspective Smith addressed local reporters for the first time Friday. He detailed a path of sobriety and personal growth.

“It has been a journey indeed and a journey that I’m grateful for,” Smith said in a conference call. “I’ve had time to really work on myself and take advantage of all the support and things that have been offered to me. … In the past, I was a young 12-year-old or young teenage boy in a man's body. I was a man on the outside but a boy inside.

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“The way that I handled those issues, life and everything, was in that immature manner. That was fear-based and just not handling things the way that I should have. With the time I’ve had to work on myself, it’s allowed me and given me the chance to grow into the man that I am now, so the man on the inside fits how the man on the outside looks. It’s just given me a new perspective and outlook on life.”

Beginning in 2012, Smith was arrested three times over a four-year span for driving under the influence. Other past legal issues include three felony weapons charges and a domestic dispute. The 30-year-old has been considerably open about some of the lows during the past handful of years, including a period in 2018 when he slept beneath a car because he didn’t feel deserving of his home.

One turning point came last year.

Smith’s grandmother, Julia Edwards, passed away. ALS robbed her ability to speak, Smith said Friday, but in their final interaction, she was able to communicate the desire for him to “do better” and get what he deserved in life.

“That stuck with me,” Smith said. “Her passing along with me being totally defeated and surrendering to the problem that I had with my drinking, I was ready to turn my life around.”

A person close to Smith said Friday that he’s been sober since last summer.

Smith began training at Unbreakable Performance Center in West Hollywood. Last December, while out of the league himself, Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy visited the facility, and the two met. Smith signed with the team in early April in a move that reunited Smith with defensive line coach Jim Tomsula, his former position coach on the San Francisco 49ers.

Dallas-based agent Ron Slavin represents Smith and negotiated the one-year, $4 million deal. He connected Smith with Tucker so that Smith could continue his training program here upon relocation.

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Tucker and Smith have met five days a week.

“He does everything that I ask of him,” Tucker said in a Friday phone interview. “He’s on time. He’s never missed. He’s been receptive to instruction. We’re just systematically trying to get his football feet back underneath him. The first time we met and visited, I basically told him, ‘You’re like an old battleship that’s been in dry dock.’

“When you get ready to send that battleship back out to sea, you’ve got to systematically start the systems. You can’t just fire it up and go. You’ve got to make sure everything still works. You’ve got to run it through a bunch of tests. That’s what we’re doing with the big fella.”

Smith acknowledged that he won’t know exactly where he is physically until he is in pads with teammates, competing in practice.

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But he is encouraged.

Smith said that he feels fast and weighs “a very fit” 285 pounds.

Tucker praised not only Smith’s first step but some of his pass-rush moves. The first “wow” moment in training, Tucker said, came when Smith used his length to execute a long-arm rush technique. Smith was going about 70% and lifted the 6-4, 365-pound Tucker off his feet before catching him.

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Another came when they trained with local prep athletes and Smith showcased an inside rush move.

“For as big as he is, I took a set with him, and he literally disappeared,” said Tucker, whose experience includes having trained Cowboys defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence and former Cowboys linemen Maliek Collins and David Irving. “He was on my outside shoulder. Before I knew it, he was on my inside shoulder, and I just said, ‘You know what? You’re not supposed to be able to do that.’”

Smith next wowed with a pass-rush technique called a “hump move.”

The maneuver was a key tool in Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive end Reggie White’s repertoire. It involves a rusher using his inside arm to lift or throw an offensive lineman toward the direction he is already moving before the rusher breaks in the opposite direction toward the quarterback.

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“You don’t see it very often anymore,” Tucker said. “That hump is a lost art form. It’s almost like the sky hook in basketball. Once Kareem Abdul-Jabbar stopped doing it, nobody else picked it up. … Aldon has an incredible hump move. … He’s just so explosive and big. With his focus and his drive and how hard he’s working and he still has it, he’s going to get 10-plus [sacks] in that system.”

Smith is attempting to achieve a rare feat.

Few athletes have experienced such professional highs — his combined 331/2 sacks in 2011 and 2012 set an NFL record — followed by such personal lows and then, after a layoff this extensive, vied to return to the game.

The odds of regaining old form may seem long to some.

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Not Smith.

“I don’t think about that,” he said. “I know how I feel. I know what I’m capable of doing, and I just plan on going out and executing what I believe I can do.”

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