Former Tennessee Vols OL Trey Smith reaches unique career milestone and he deserves a moment of recognition from fans
Former Tennessee Vols offensive lineman Trey Smith reached a unique career milestone on Sunday. Smith, who just completed his fourth season in the NFL, officially signed his franchise tag with the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday evening. And for now, that means that Smith is the highest paid guard in the NFL. Smith is set […]
Former Tennessee Vols offensive lineman Trey Smith reached a unique career milestone on Sunday.
Smith, who just completed his fourth season in the NFL, officially signed his franchise tag with the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday evening.
And for now, that means that Smith is the highest paid guard in the NFL.
Smith is set to earn $23.4 million with the Chiefs in 2025.
Kansas City, however, is still hoping to work out an extension with Smith before the deadline on July 15 (a player who receives the franchise tag has to work out an extension before July 15 at 4:00 PM ET…otherwise the player has to play on the franchise tag in 2025).
It's remarkable to see where Smith is at in his NFL career after what he went through during his sophomore season at Tennessee.
In early 2018, Smith was sidelined when blood clots in his lungs were discovered after the Tennessee native was unable to finish offseason workouts. Smith spent three nights in the hospital in February 2018. He was cleared to play before the 2018 season, but the blood clots returned seven games into the season. At that point, Smith's football future was completely up in the air.
Smith was able to return to action in 2019 and he has not missed a game due to blood clots since. Despite finishing his career at Tennessee with two straight healthy seasons, Smith fell to the sixth round of the 2021 NFL Draft due to concerns over the blood clots.
Over the last four seasons, Smith was one of the biggest bargains in the NFL.
Smith has started 80 games for the Chiefs (including the playoffs) since entering the league in 2021. And he's earned just $6.5 million during those four seasons (per Spotrac).
We'll see if Smith gets an extension with the Chiefs at some point this offseason. For now, though, it's incredible that Smith is the highest paid guard in the NFL after it looked like his football career was close to being over in 2018.
Smith is undoubtedly a beloved former Vol, but he deserves a special moment of recognition for reaching this point in his career. No one in the NFL deserves a big pay day more than Trey Smith.
