The football world is shocked by the demise of former NFL star Chris Smith. The defensive end, who played in the league for eight seasons, died on April 17th, 2023. He was only 31 years old.
Smith played for several teams in his career and signed lucrative deals since being drafted in 2014. As a result, he was able to earn a huge amount of wealth. Read on to know everything about the footballer’s net worth and earnings.
Chris Smith Net Worth
As per sources, Chris Smith had a net worth of around $6 to $8 million at the time of his death in April 2023. Almost all of these earnings came from his long and successful NFL career. The player was selected by the Jacksonville Jaguars in the fifth round of the 2014 NFL Draft. During his years with the Jaguars, Smith earned around $2.4 million.
In 2018, he moved to the Cleveland Browns and signed a three-year contract, worth a whopping $12 million, with $4.5 million guaranteed. After playing for three seasons, Smith was selected by the Carolina Panthers in 2020. However, he faced a massive downgrade in his contract as he only earned $1.495 million for a year.
After the end of the 2020 season, the footballer earned a contract worth $910,000 from the Las Vegas Raiders. The following year, he signed on with the Baltimore Ravens and was paid $252,000 to be a part of the team’s practice squad. Later in 2021, he got into a contract with Houston Texans and made $42,000. He became a free agent in 2022.
NFL Career
Smith played 72 games in his NFL career and had 80 tackles and 11 sacks. Earlier, he played football while attending the Arkansas Razorbacks and made it to All-Southeastern Conference in his senior year in 2013. He had his best NFL seasons in 2017 and 2018. In 2017, he had three sacks for the Bengals.
In 2018, he started two games and played in all the games of the season for the Browns. He recorded 21 tackles in the season and also had one sack, defended two passes, and had a forced fumble. More recently, in March 2023, Smith signed with the XFL team Seattle Sea Dragons and played four matches in the league.
Tragedy and Death
Smith had to go through a tragic personal loss while playing for the Browns in the 2019 season. On September 11 that year, he had just dropped off his girlfriend Petara Cordero on the road when she was hit by a car. She died on the spot. Cordero was also the mother of one of Smith’s three children. The footballer also could not perform well in the season following the tragedy and was waived by the Browns.
On April 17th, 2023, the Browns announced that Smith had passed away at the age of 31. “It’s a tragic loss for his family, friends, former teammates, and for Rowan County. He had been the ultimate give-back guy and had been a generous donor to local schools and projects. He stayed close to his Rowan County roots no matter where his football odyssey took him,” read his obituary.
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