National Football League

Redskins' Smith having interesting year for punter

Published Nov. 20, 2009 9:22 a.m. ET

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Hunter Smith is getting a lot of attention for a punter. First, his position coach claimed with a straight face during training camp that Smith might be the best holder in the history of the NFL. Then Smith showed up at practice one day wearing strange, seamless burgundy and gold shoes, a can't-miss moment for TV cameras. In the Washington Redskins' season opener he scored a touchdown, running 8 yards on a fake field goal. Then he got hurt. Twice. The pulled groin in his kicking leg forced the Redskins to use three other punters over a five-game span. Smith was nearly placed on the season-ending injured reserve list. Then came the biggest moment yet. On Sunday, during a wacky fake field goal sequence, Smith uncorked a 35-yard touchdown pass to Mike Sellers to turn the tide in a 27-17 win over Denver that snapped a four-game losing streak. "Generally, the only time we generate news is when we don't punt well, and the news is that we've lost our job," Smith said Thursday. "If you have to sit out and cause your team that sort of roster problem with an injury, you'd like to come back and be worth your weight." Smith was chosen as the NFC special teams player of the week. He is the first specialist in NFL history to run and pass for a touchdown in the same season. Seems he was worth all the trouble he caused. "It makes it difficult to put a guy down, to release a guy, to bring a guy back, to have two punters on the roster at the same time, all of that logistical thing," coach Jim Zorn said. "But the thing that we came out with was very positive results, with the punters that we used and then Hunter being able to make it back. That couldn't have been a better story." The fake field goal looked silly watching it live, but it was a stroke of well-designed genius from special teams coach Danny Smith. Even though the Redskins had advertised the fake and even sent a man in motion, the Broncos didn't notice Sellers slip out to the left while Smith and everyone else rolled right. Smith was recruited as a quarterback by Notre Dame and was the emergency third-string quarterback for many of his 10 years with the Indianapolis Colts, so he was able to throw a downfield spiral with no problem. "It's one of those you knew is going to be a touchdown or nothing," Smith said. "At that point in the game, we were willing to take that risk. I really wasn't nervous about it not working. I just had a feeling. Who thinks that I'm going to throw that pass? Who thinks that I'm going to roll out and actually throw it and not punt it or something? They certainly didn't." Until this season, most of the noise from Hunter has come during the offseason, when he's making music with his Christian rock band Connersvine. He and a friend have been writing songs and performing during NFL offseasons for the better part of the decade and have recorded a CD. The band's name came about when a youth pastor brought some cherry tomatoes that his son had grown and asked the people at church: "Does anybody want these - they're straight off of Conner's vine." Fronting the band makes Smith well versed in the challenges of balancing faith with the NFL lifestyle. "I don't think professional athletes have it harder because of the temptations of being here than anybody else," Smith said. "It's hard to be a Christian, no matter what. If you are a professional football player, if you are an electrician, if you are a contractor, if you are a lawyer, if you are a plumber, it is hard to be a Christian." Zorn needed to have some football faith in Smith to have the punter return after the second groin injury. It wasn't until Saturday that the latest fill-in was released and the coaching staff was convinced that Smith could indeed last the season. Now he needs to keep the groin from flaring up again, and that means scaling back in practice. "We're not going out there and kicking my leg off, but I'm trying to get better and get my skills sharp at the same time," Smith said. "It's a fine balance." In 2001, the Redskins were 0-5 and losing to Carolina when LaVar Arrington ran back an interception for a touchdown, a play credited with igniting a five-game winning streak. Could Smith's trick TD play start a similar turnaround? "I certainly would love it if that were the case," he said. "This is legitimately a very talented football team, and there are crazier things that happen. The year that we won the Super Bowl in Indianapolis, nobody remembers this - we were not very good. We had all kinds of problems, and nobody believed in us. But we did, and it worked."

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