Welcome To Canton Mr. Smith

Bruce Smith was drafted as the number one selection back in the '85 draft for the Buffalo Bills. That draft proved to be a great one for the Bills considering it yielded both future Hall of Fame inductee Andre Reed as well as the priceless back-up QB Frank Reich.

When it comes to personal achievements, there isn't really anything that Bruce has NOT accomplished. For starters, his 200 career sacks is tops in NFL lore..... However, some do not believe that Smith is the best DE ever. I'll get to that in a moment. He is a member of BOTH the NFL's 1980's and 1990's All-Decade team. He also boasts 11 Pro Bowls, 9 FIRST team All-Pro selections, and 2 count-em TWO time AP Defensive player of the year. For a career that spanned 3 decades in the NFL, Bruce terrorized Quarterbacks with a relentless pursuit that I have only seen mirrored on the Discovery Channel during "Shark Week". What seem to be wild and reckless abandon, was actually the sweet science of "layin the wood". Ironically the name Bruce, is actually French in origin and means literally, WOODS.

Over Bruce's career, AMAZING had become the norm, as well as the standard. Bruce posted double digit sack totals in 13 of his first 16 years in the NFL. For those 13 years, he averaged better than 11 sacks per season and a personal best of 19. Yeah.....NINETEEN. Bruce also played with the mentality of a Middle linebacker which is evident by him posting 70 or more tackles in 5 different seasons, including 2 seasons of over 100 tackles.

Smith set the NFL ablaze in 1990 when he recorded his personal best of of 19 sacks, along with 101 tackles. Yes, 101 from the Right End. Again, the AMAZING becoming the norm.....We know teams clearly were game planning AWAY from Bruce, and he still was able to have such a profound impact on the game. This same season just happened to be the first appearance of a record 4 consecutive Super Bowl appearances for the Bills. As valuable as Jim Kelly was to the Offense, Bruce was that much more important to the defense of the Buffalo Bills.

Back to my earlier notion of some not thinking that Bruce is the best of all time. Consider everything you have read, and then remember that Bruce played RDE in one of the NFL's ONLY 3-4 defense's. So not only was he going up against opposing teams best blockers, but he was also getting double teamed on almost every down.

None the less, on August 8th, 2009, Bruce Bernard Smith will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. A day when the sporting world gathers to see the ELITE FEW who can boldly wear the gold jacket not only with pride, but knowing they were among the games FEW who had changed the game forever.