In typical Harrison Smith fashion, the 12-year veteran safety for the Vikings maintained a rather cryptic tone this past winter while standing inside the visitors locker room at Ford Field in Detroit.

His sweat had barely dried and he was still coming to grips with the fact that the Vikings had missed the playoffs after a 30-20 loss to the Lions in Week 18. He wasn’t interested in talking about his plans for the future, especially when it came to the possibility of retirement.

The only clarity Smith provided was when he emphasized the following: If he indeed decided to retire, there wasn’t going to be formal announcement of any sort. He would simply fade the background. He wasn’t going to bring too much attention to himself.

After taking a couple of months to think about it, Smith ultimately agreed to restructure his contract, ensuring that he would remain with the Vikings moving forward. The time away was important for Smith. He got to spend a lot of quality time with his wife, Madison, and their children, Eleanor and Pierce, and even personally helped with the remodeling of his home in Knoxville, Tenn.

“I was completely living life like I wasn’t a football player,” Smith said. “It’s a good weight off my mind to kind of reset and come back around to it.”

Now that Smith, 35, is back in the mix, he’s confident he can still be an impactful player.

“I still feel good,” he said. “I still feel like I can play at a high level.”

It helps that Smith developed a close relationship with defensive coordinator Brian Flores while getting to work with him on a daily basis. Though he’s more than a decade into his career, Smith went out of his way to note how much he has learned from Flores. They seem to speak the same language when they’re out there together.

“It’s been awesome,” Smith said. “I learned a lot of things last year that I was never really introduced to throughout my career.”

As much as Smith has connected with Flores on the field, he has also connected with him off the field.

“There’s a lot to be learned from him beyond football,” Smith said. “As I’ve gotten a few more years under my belt, I’ve grown to appreciate those things. Just how to carry myself as a man and as a husband and as a father. Those things carry over to football.”

There seemed to be a genuine excitement from Smith this week as he returned to the Twin Cities for organized team activities. He looked reinvigorated and ready to attack whatever gets thrown at him. Even questions about the possibility of this year being his farewell tour.

“I don’t know,” Smith said. “I just kind of take it day by day thinking about what I’m doing on the field and how I can get better at that. That kind of simplifies it and it really lets me enjoy the moment more than like saying, ‘Oh, this is my last one.’ That’s not really my style.”

It never has been. It never will be.

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