One Does Not Simply Replace Harrison Smith: A Three-Part Series

This is part one of a three-part series about Harrison Smith, his impact, and how well his likeliest replacements, Jay Ward and Theo Jackson, will be able to fill his shoes. Part one will be about the basics of safety play, footwork, and tackling angles. Part 2 will be about safeties in Cover 2, and Part 3 will discuss how they play Quarters.

In the final game of the 2025 season, several of Harrison Smith’s teammates showed up to the game to honor his storied career. 

Andrew Sendejo, Anthony Harris, Xavier Rhodes and Anthony Barr all came out to celebrate The Hitman. Even Mistral Raymond and Jamarca Sanford, teammates from Smith’s earliest years, came out to show support. 

The entire game screeched to a halt as Kevin O’Connell called a timeout “to honor Harrison Smith”. Not to review a call or stop the clock, but to honor one player whose legacy justifies it.

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Smith is a six-time Pro Bowler, two-time All-Pro, and even got votes for Defensive Player of the Year in 2017. He notched 39 career interceptions. He’s been the backbone of historic defenses in the Mike Zimmer era and found a new stride with Brian Flores. I don’t need to justify this to you. You already agree.

He’s a Minnesota Legend, saying goodbye to the game he’s given so much, and that has given so much to him.

Or is he?

As of this writing, it’s unclear if Harrison Smith will retire or not. He could be waiting through the dog days of camp to come back, or genuinely mulling his future. The team is giving him space to make the decision, and so we wait. Maybe all that pomp and circumstance was for nothing.

In the meantime, the Vikings have to figure out a plan. Brian Flores spoke on the difficulties they are facing without him. “Somebody’s got to step into those roles and into those shoes,” he said. “That’s the National Football League. Whether it’s injuries, whether it’s guys moving on, every year is a little bit different, every team’s a little bit different.” 

He mentioned Jay Ward, Theo Jackson, and even Tavierre Thomas as veterans who know the assignments and can fill his shoes. It’s a tough sell. Theo Jackson went from a key cog in the defense to a rotational afterthought. Jay Ward only played 248 defensive snaps, but had a strong finish to the year. Thomas barely played on defense at all.

There’s always Joshua Metellus. In an ideal world, he would continue his famous Swiss Army Knife role, but last year that wasn’t quite possible with the goings-on elsewhere at safety. Metellus played 350 snaps at PFF’s “Free Safety” designation in 2025, more than double the total from 2023 and 2024 combined. 

I’d venture a guess that Flores doesn’t prefer Metellus at that role, but rather had no choice with injuries to Harrison Smith, the loss of Cam Bynum, and the aforementioned issues with Jackson and Ward. So let’s see if we can afford to leave him out of this. That shouldn’t be too much to ask with a fully healthy camp roster.

There’s also the new rookie Jakobe Thomas, something of a wild card in all of this. He could very well find his way into this equation somewhere. I think he has a puncher’s chance, but that’s a different and more speculative kind of dialogue than I’m going for today. For now, let’s chalk him up to an unpredictable rookie and leave him to the side.

That leaves Jackson and Ward to compete for the deep safety jobs. If they both fail, the Vikings will have to trot out Metellus with their tail between their legs. So can they do it? What is stopping Ward and Jackson from being bona fide starters going into this camp?

Theo Jackson’s role in the Vikings defense has been purely deep. He hasn’t been a regular part of Flores’ exotic blitz schemes, only rushing the passer 11 times in 529 snaps over 13 games. 369 of those, he aligned deep. He’s a true deep safety, unlike Smith or Ward, who play in the box much more often.

As such, we have to get to know the classic coverage responsibilities for a deep safety in Brian Flores’ defense. The Vikings live in split safety coverages, or Middle Of Field Open (MOFO), more than anyone else in the league, per Trumedia. In 2025 they ranked dead last in Cover 1 and Cover 3 usage, and 2nd in Cover 2 usage.

dd Cover 4 (I’m going to call it Quarters) and the hybrid Cover 6, and you get the whole range of MOFO coverages. The Vikings still do use Cover 3 almost a third of the time, but many of those coverages are fire zone blitz coverages or other exotics - worthy of their own separate discussion someday.

Let’s stick to the MOFO coverages, which Flores loves, even as he blitzes - the defining feature of the exotic Flores defense. 

So for today, we’ll focus on Cover 2 and Cover 4 techniques. We have to learn a few fundamentals together so we can make sense of all this.

For today, I want to teach you three different kinds of safety footwork: scooch, catch, and backpedal. Backpedal is the easiest, and you’re probably already familiar with what it looks like. Hips over your heels, knees together, and walk backwards on the balls of your toes.

Here’s a really great one from Jay Ward, covering tons of distance while keeping his feet underneath him. Note how he uses his arms to maintain balance and control, “banging the drum”, as he may have been told when he was younger.