Steve Smith Revealed

Steve Smith is in the pre-season news, not for breaking tackles, but for breaking faces.

Apparently, tensions ran high during practice between Smith and Ken "You'll Only Remember Me As That Guy Who Got Jacked By Steve Smith" Lucas, and Smith decided Lucas needed some physical attention. Reportedly, the two haven't gotten along since Lucas arrived at Carolina in 2005.

Not to break off onto some tangent, but the individual coverage of the events is hilarious. NFL players, or their agency, often pay people to run and update their websites and other various coverages on the information super-highway. Apparently, one of these people looks over Wikipedia. I encourage everyone to look at how "apologetic" Smith was following the altercation/beat-down and how Lucas really isn't that big of a puss, but quote "teammates and coaches intervened leaving Lucas shocked and without an attempt at redemption." Top shelf, Wikipedia.

So what's the impact of the fight? Well, there's a large dent where player-whose-name-is-not-important-enough-to-recall's nose used to be. And the Carolina Panthers will likely lose the first two games of the season that Smith will be suspended for. I haven't seen who they're playing, but they are remarkably ungood without him.

But this has also been pretty revealing about Steve "Thug?" Smith. Is he really as street as he and the NFL would purport?

"But Zack, he had a single mom and he lived in the hood." True, but his mom was also a counselor so anything that Smith say that could have warped his fragile young mind could easily have been reversed.

"Stovall, aren't you neglecting his array of tattoos?" I neglect them not. But have you really looked at them?
He ripped off Shaq's SuperShaq emblem, has a Smurf tattoo(which after some investigation has yielded no legitimate street cred), a cliche Asian thing, and the name of his kids, all of which were birthed by the same mother. This could very well be Billy Graham's body art run down.

"He is a receiver in the NFL, Stovie, he has millions to blow on booze, hookers, and/or drug paraphernalia. Are you retarded?" This is true. He is a professional and not to mention a pro-bowl receiver. However, he is also an intern at Morgan Stanley's Charlotte branch. A financial planning intern? "Hey Sport, go get me that coffee that's 40 yards away in under 4.5 seconds." "Hey Tiger, I'm going to need a skinny post fade to the fax to get my TPS reports." I bet they make him sign autographs for their kids. Very unballer.

So while Smith may have kept it real on whats-his-face, he seriously lacks realness in other categories. Maybe he can achieve some of those features after he goes and gets a new coffee pot for the office, because the old one broke about 9:30 this morning.