I am torn on this stuff. Clearly the intentions here are a good thing. I have completely flipped on Smith though. Any other player I would like this. Smith? Just seems phony to me. This guy is all about his brand and image. I wish he would have mastered football a few more seasons before diving head first into this stuff. It seems like such a distraction for a guy that repeatedly avoided contact as a NFL linebacker. I see more of that this coming season and I will be convinced the guy isn’t serious about football but is really serious about being Jaylon Smith.
Am I wrong here?
It can be a positive or negative. It's up to the Head Coach to manage players with regards to these types of activities.
Jimmy managed to use players bigger than life personas to make the team better.
Wade Phillips let them get completely out of control an allowed them to believe they had accomplished something.
Garrett's only solution was to get players like Sean Lee and Witten and push out players like Greg Hardy. Garrett had zero ability to manage players. Garrett could not manage Dez and Stephen Jones finally had enough and cut him.
A Garrett type Head Coach would have dumped Charles Haley or never a acquired him in the first place.
Jaylon Smith should not be difficult to manage for a good Head Coach.
Jaylon is a good guy that has been allowed to "eat the cheese" to quote Parcells.
LB coach Ben Bloom was likely hand feeding the cheese to Jaylon. The new coaches on defense are mostly old-school types. Jim Tomsula probably thinks cell phone are futuristic devices from Star Trek.