SEATTLE -- Sherman Smith says the knee injury that forced him to miss most of the 1980 season is 'old news' and thinks he can be catalyst for a comeback by the Seattle Seahawks in 1981.
'There's no doubt in my mind,' said Smith, a 6-foot-4, 225-pound veteran running back. 'I'm going to play and I'm going to play well. If somebody walks up to me and says, 'Hey, how's that knee doing?' I'm going to tell 'em, 'That's old news.''
Smith has spent about seven months rehabilitating from the knee injury he suffered during the third game of the regular season. Smith's injury was one of a series of disasters that culminated in a 4-12 season for Seattle.
Smith led the Seahawks in rushing in each of the club's first four seasons, averaging over 700 yards per season and 4.5 yards per carry. He contributed just 94 yards last year before he was injured.
In recent weeks, Smith says he has shifted from a rehabilitation program to a 'training effort getting ready to play football -- catching passes, running routes and agility drills.' It's more on the field than in the training room.
'I would say right now the knee is about 95 percent,' he said. 'I'd like to be 100 percent. I don't know how noticeable that five percent would be to anyone other than me.'
The Seahawks put together back-to-back 9-7 seasons before last year's debacle and Smith believes he could play a critical part in Seattle's returning to its previous form. After all, rookie running back Billy Sims helped the Detroit Lions jump from 1-15 to 9-7 in one season.
'I felt Billy Sims was a catalyst in Detroit,' said Smith. 'Last season, the players didn't know much about him, but they knew he could play. You can't give all the credit for Detroit's success to Billy Sims, but his play inspired a lot of their guys.
'I've been here going on six year now. Our guys know what I can do and, yeah, I think I could do the same thing. I think I could be the catalyst, get 'em excited.
'When I was out on the field, there was a lot of mutual respect and it makesyou feel good when you come in the game and guys would say, 'All right, my man's in here.' That's the same feeling I'm getting this spring. They're excited. They say, 'Hey, you're doing great.''
Smith, who runs out of the tailback position for the Seahawks, thinks the quickness and acceleration that helped him rush for almost 3,000 yards and 25 touchdowns are coming back.
'A month ago, I felt coming out of my cuts I didn't have the explosiveness, but I knew that would improve as time went on and it has. Right now I feel good about it.
'The biggest thing I had to do was get the mental confidence. At the beginning of May, I was able to do everything physically, but mentally I wasn't that sure. I was thinking about the knee. It was just a day-by-day process of gaining confidence. By the last couple weeks of May, I just wasn't think about it (the knee) because I felt there was no need to.'
Like a lot of Seattle fans, Smith suffered through some trying, frustrating moments last fall in the Kingdome, where the Seahawks failed to win a game.
'A lot of times, it was a numbing feeling, sitting up in the Kingdome watching it happen. It was a helpless feeling, knowing that, well, there's nothing I can do about it. But you always have that second guess -- could I have made a little bit of difference out there? So I found myself getting frustrated, thinking I might have made a difference.'
Smith also had a chance to think about what it will take to reverse the Seahawks' fortunes 1981.
'I think it's going to take a lot of individual effort, guys getting upset about last season, saying, 'Hey, I'm going to come back and be a better football player that I was last year' and doing what it takes to be better to help this team, not just as a way of making money.
'When you start losing it can be contagious. You say, 'Oh man, let's get the season over with.' I wasn't around the guys enough to sense that kind of attitude. Jim Zorn was saying he was mad about the way he played last year and if everybody will take that attitude and work as hard as he's worked this off-season, we're going to have a lot better team.'
