Roquan Smith shows out for Chicago Bears in Monday Night Football win
Former Georgia linebacker Roquan Smith, now of the Chicago Bears, showed out on Monday Night Football this week, helping the Bears to a 33-14 win over the New England Patriots on the road last night. Smith totaled 12 tackles, including a sack, to lead all players. He also capped the night off with an interception that put any chance of a Patriots comeback to bed.
Smith currently leads the NFL in tackles with 78 stops through seven games. He has double-digit tackles in five out of his last six games. Since they started tallying the statistic in 1994, no Bears player has finished a season atop the NFL in tackles. He has 2.5 sacks on the season, all on third down too.
Smith, who is in his fifth season in the NFL, was a unanimous All-American during his final season at Georgia in 2017, also becoming the first Bulldog to win the Butkus Award. He attended Macon County High School in Montezuma, Ga. where he originally committed to UCLA before changing his commitment to stay home. Smith played in 12 games, recording 20 tackles, as a true freshman before taking off in his sophomore season, starting 10 of 13 games and totaling 95 stops. In 2017, he was named MVP of the SEC Championship Game after a career-high-tying 13 tackles and a pair of fumble recoveries. He started all 15 games for Georgia that season and led the team with 137 stops, 6.5 sacks, 14.0 tackles for loss and 20 quarterback pressures.
Smith was taken No. 8 overall by the Bears in the 2018 NFL Draft after foregoing his final year of eligibility at Georgia. He recorded a sack on his first career snap against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday Night Football as a rookie, propelling him in a stellar season. The Bears would make the Playoffs and Smith would total 121 tackles, five sacks, five passes defended and one interception. He was named a Pro Bowl alternate.
Smith’s seasons in the league since then have also been strong, however, he’s battling injuries at times. In 2019, Smith suffered a torn pectoral muscle in Week 14 which brought that season to a close for him. He missed the Bears Playoff appearance in 2020 after suffering an elbow injury in the final game of the regular season. Still, he was named All-Pro after the season, the first time in his career. He earned All-pro status once again in 2021 in a season that saw him finish with 163 tackles, fifth-most in the NFL, including a career-high 17-tackle performance against the Baltimore Ravens. The Bears exercised their right to fifth-year option Smith’s contract which guaranteed him a salary of $9.7 million for the 2022 season, but Smith tried to negotiate for more over the offseason. He requested a trade at that time stating the reason being that the “new front office regime doesn’t value me here,” and did not report practice with the Bears during the start of training game. He ended that hold out in late August and stated that he would no longer continue to negotiate with the Bears’ front office during the 2022 season, making him a free agent at the end of the year.
