{"id":204532,"date":"2025-09-06T08:36:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T08:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/204532\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T08:36:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T08:36:15","slug":"philadelphia-eagles-sign-3-time-pro-bowler-zadarius-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/204532\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia Eagles sign 3-time Pro Bowler Za&#8217;Darius Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"FJGMNQ5OIRAQXCI5LQ5FDIAPV4\">A day after kicking off the 2025 NFL season with a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.al.com\/sports\/2025\/09\/nfl-thursday-night-eagles-weather-storm-against-cowboys.html\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"https:\/\/www.al.com\/sports\/2025\/09\/nfl-thursday-night-eagles-weather-storm-against-cowboys.html\">24-20 victory over the Dallas Cowboys<\/a> on Thursday night, the Philadelphia Eagles moved to strengthen their pass rush by signing Greenville High School alumnus<a href=\"https:\/\/www.al.com\/topic\/zadarius%20smith\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"https:\/\/al.com\/topic\/zadarius%20smith\/\"> Za\u2019Darius Smith<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"NU6YAGUCEFE4VOHPGLNLPESWUA\">Smith will be suiting up for an 11th NFL season after recording nine sacks in nine games with the Cleveland Browns and eight games with the Detroit Lions in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"BLG4RSXKPNAMTLUXH7ELGKGFP4\">On Thursday night, Philadelphia did not record a sack as Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott threw 34 passes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"IGS7Y2W5L5BERFTSMV57HANB7Y\">Against the Cowboys, the Eagles started Jalyx Hunt and Nolan Smith in the defensive end\/outside linebacker spots. Hunt had 1.5 sacks as a rookie in 2024, and Smith had 7.5 sacks in his first two NFL seasons. <\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"VHICZSUH5VEJFFSWJCLFROR3VQ\">Smith has 69 career sacks. During his three Pro Bowl seasons, Smith had 13.5 sacks in 2019 and 12.5 sacks in 2020 for the Green Bay Packers and, after a back injury limited him to one game in 2021, 10 sacks in 2022 for the Minnesota Vikings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"DN2OA5BPH5GT5GEJLIVWFQADPY\">Smith filled the roster spot left vacant by fullback Ben VanSumeren. The Eagles placed VanSumeren on injured reserve on Friday after he sustained a knee injury on the opening kickoff on Thursday night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"LROSBUHXDJEGLNC6K72C4JVAUE\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.philadelphiaeagles.com\/news\/zadarius-smith-eagles\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.philadelphiaeagles.com\/news\/zadarius-smith-eagles\">Philadelphia announced<\/a> Smith signed a one-year contract on Friday. Terms were not disclosed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"UUTRE75KIFGRLLHT7GDBYYONC4\">A basketball player at Greenville High School, Smith played football for the Tigers during his senior year. That led him to East Mississippi Community College, and he completed his college career with two seasons at Kentucky.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"DBSSLVX3WFHSHMLZYZD46Q7YCE\">A fourth-round choice of Baltimore in the 2015 NFL Draft, Smith played four seasons with the Ravens before joining the Green Bay Packers in free agency for a four-year, $66 million contract.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"SW5XKHCRVRC3PATQLQYXSW272I\">Philadelphia\u2019s next game is on Sept. 14, when the Eagles play the Kansas City Chiefs at 3:25 p.m. CDT at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"JMIKGAXOYRAF5EVOKY7O7GGOSQ\"><b>FOR MORE OF AL.COM\u2019S COVERAGE OF THE NFL, GO TO OUR <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.al.com\/nfl\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><b>NFL PAGE<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"45YHU6HUSVBUJJZIH7BID5GV4I\">Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AMarkG1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@AMarkG1<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.advancelocal.com\/advancelocalUserAgreement\/user-agreement.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.advancelocal.com\/advancelocalUserAgreement\/privacy-policy.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A day after kicking off the 2025 NFL season with a 24-20 victory over the Dallas Cowboys on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":204533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[112793,5229,74656,79718,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-204532","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-_ozr3223","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-helmet-off","11":"tag-nflraw25","12":"tag-pa","13":"tag-pennsylvania","14":"tag-philadelphia","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115156443803964952","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}