Things were going swimmingly for Alphonso Smith entering that fateful Thanksgiving Day game last year against the New England Patriots.
Smith, the Detroit cornerback who was acquired in a trade with the Denver Broncos days before the 2010 season opener, was leading the Lions with five interceptions through 12 games and had become a big-play threat, even returning a pick 42 yards for a touchdown. He was a gambler on defense, and it was paying off big.
Then hit Turkey Day, when Patriots quarterback Tom Brady feasted on Smith and the Lions secondary, completing 21 of 27 passes for 341 yards and four touchdowns in a 45-24 rout. Smith was responsible for two of the touchdowns, one in which Deion Branch ran circles around him for a 79-yard score (see video at right). The second touchdown got him benched.
Brady has done this sort of thing to better NFL cornerbacks, but Smith took it hard, personally. He was embarrassed on national TV.
"I just want to apologize to my teammates because they played so hard," Smith said after the game. "I feel as if I was the catalyst for this loss. I also want to apologize to this organization and the fans."
It only went downhill from there. Smith suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in a loss to the Bears the following week, then broke his foot in July while working out during the lockout, which forced him to miss all of training camp.
The Lions were starting to move on without him. They signed Eric Wright in free agency and re-signed Chris Houston. By the start of the season, Smith found himself buried on the depth chart with little playing time in sight.
That suddenly changed two weeks ago when Houston went down with a knee injury and Smith filled in on nickel packages against the Saints. When Wright and Aaron Berry suffered injuries against the Vikings on Sunday, Smith stepped in and stepped up.
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He had two interceptions in the Lions' 34-28 win, the second of which he returned 30 yards for a touchdown that gave Detroit a commanding 28-7 lead moments into the second half. The victory vaulted the Lions into the NFC's sixth playoff seed, and if the season ended today Detroit would be in the postseason.
"He's missed a ton of time and that gave him a chance to sit back and watch and see what parts of his game he needed to improve on," Schwartz said after the game. "He's playing very good technique football now. He had some problems last year with guessing too much but his interceptions today came from playing good technique."
For the moment, the painful memories of Brady from a year ago are fading in the rearview mirror.
"I know people gave him a hard time last year in the New England game," linebacker Stephen Tulloch told the Detroit News, "but I'm in awe of how he responded."