He made the All-Rookie team in 2012, after returning two of his three interceptions for touchdowns and claiming the other one off Aaron Rodgers. He played his first postseason game that year, as part of a wild-card team that went 3-13 the year before.
Harrison Smith chuckles now about the simplicity of it all, how quickly success came despite how much he still had to learn.
"I was still looking at offenses and trying to pick up on things," he said. "But I was mostly kind of like a dog chasing a car."
At the end of the 10th year of an NFL career that includes as many Pro Bowls (six) as playoff games, Smith knows better. He is a safety for his time, adept at the blitz disguises and last-second coverage shifts used to fool quarterbacks who started learning how to beat Cover-2 defenses while playing Madden on an Xbox. He has 29 career interceptions, more than any active player who's spent his entire career at safety. He has nudged his way into comparisons with Hall of Famers such as Ed Reed, Troy Polamalu, John Lynch and Steve Atwater, the players Smith lionized as a kid in Tennessee.
None of it, not playing safety in an era of record-breaking offenses, not adapting to the rules changes that continue to make his job more complex and certainly not reaching the postseason, is as easy as it might once have seemed.
"You look back at what used to be good — like completion numbers for quarterbacks — and what they are today. All the Hall of Famers from back in the day would be, percentage-wise, at the bottom," he said. "And that's not because they wouldn't be great in this era, either. It's because the game's changed, the officiating's changed. I don't always like comparing eras. I just like to appreciate guys who are good when they played."
Smith, 32, signed a four-year extension in August worth just over $64 million, giving him a chance to finish his career in Minnesota and possibly reach the Hall of Fame, especially if he can earn a second All-Pro selection or win a Super Bowl.
The final years of his career, though, could mean a new coach if the Vikings fire Mike Zimmer, whom Smith credits with helping him understand defense at a deeper level and using him in a versatile role the safety relishes. He's not naive about where the game is going, either; he's tried sharing his views about how rule changes have made defenders' jobs difficult, but knows why he's not likely to get much of an audience.
"I'm not a blunt instrument that thinks, 'Oh, we should be able to hit anybody wherever we want,'" he said. "I get it: We don't want guys getting hurt. A lot of the revenue relies on star quarterbacks and receivers, because that's what people are tuning in for. So I understand the game. But it does make it hard on defensive players, and in some scenarios, I think it makes it impossible to participate in the game without penalty. It's just what it is."
All he can do, he reasons, is what he's done throughout his career: Change with the times.
"I've tried to adapt," he said. "I still don't get it done every time. But all you can do is try to prepare yourself."
A hallmark of Zimmer's defenses
After Smith played two years in the Vikings' old Tampa-2 scheme, Zimmer's arrival unlocked the multi-faceted role Smith has played ever since. He blitzed only 19 times under Leslie Frazier, according to Pro Football Focus, but has rushed the quarterback at least 34 times in each of his eight seasons under Zimmer, posting 15½ sacks in that time. His ability to blitz from depth, or to bail at the last second from the line of scrimmage to a deep coverage responsibility, has been a hallmark of Zimmer's defenses.
In November, Rodgers called Smith "the most difficult person in the league to determine whether he's blitzing" after the Vikings beat the Packers 34-31.
"We can play him in a bunch of different positions and he doesn't bat an eye," co-defensive coordinator Adam Zimmer said. "We made a call that we didn't practice with him, in a game, and he executed it fine. He said, 'Oh, I can do that — that's no big deal.'"
Smith is grateful for the role, which capitalizes on what he calls his best attribute: His well-roundedness.
"I get to do a lot of different things, which really, in my opinion, is my strength," he said. "I'm pretty good at a lot of stuff. I might not be the best at anything, but I'm pretty good everywhere."
Smith golfed all summer with Patrick Peterson, after the eight-time Pro Bowler signed a one-year deal with the Vikings. On-field communication with corners can be difficult in the chaos of a game, Smith said; with Peterson, all he needs is a look.
"He's the commander by not even saying much," Peterson said last month. "He can just look at you, because first of all, he don't have a very loud voice. ... But his eyes, and his demeanor, and just his ability to impact the game, it's special. He means a lot to this defense. He means a lot to this organization. It just goes to show, us old guys can still play."
The hardest thing to do on the field
Smith has not yet, however, found much success as an advocate.
He said he attended one NFL Players Association meeting to speak on rules changes he's found particularly onerous.
An increased emphasis on defensive holding and pass interference, Smith said, has made "playing man-to-man and not getting penalties" the hardest thing to do on a field. The league's targeting rules, which have shrunk the strike zone for a legal hit, can turn throws over the middle into the kinds of plays like the one that got Smith ejected in Houston last year.
"They tell us to stay out of the head and neck area, and a lot of guys do that, and then the player ducks their head," Smith said. "I'm not saying they're wrong for that, because I'm sure it's just natural to do that. But then it creates the hits they say they don't want to see.
"All these things happen so fast. Most of them, you can tell if there's vicious intent or not. I know it's hard to write a rule that way, but just as human beings, you can look at something and say, 'He wasn't trying to kill anybody. He was just trying to get to the ball.'"
He takes a can't-fight-City-Hall view of the situation because he knows the players he's struggling to tackle safely are the ones that drive the league's bottom line.
If he's to be a foil, at least he'll be a well-compensated one.
"If anything, it's going to get harder," he said. "I understand that. Money will go up for everybody, so ... whatever."
Is Smith a Hall of Famer?
There are just 17 safeties in the Hall of Fame; former Viking Paul Krause, who still holds the NFL interception record with 81, waited 14 years before his 1998 enshrinement.
"It was not a fun time [waiting]," Krause said with a laugh. "I broke the record, I went to [eight] Pro Bowls, all of that stuff. ... There's a lot of guys that belong in the Hall of Fame that don't get in right away."
Since Krause was inducted, 10 safeties have reached the Hall of Fame. Former Packers safety LeRoy Butler — a four-time All-Pro and a member of the NFL's All-1990s team — is a finalist for the third consecutive year, the only safety among the group of 15 modern-era players up for the Class of 2022.
Rick Gosselin, who's been a Hall of Fame voter for nearly three decades, said defenders make up only 34.5% of the players enshrined in Canton, Ohio. He added that 75.4% of players made an All-Decade team (Smith was not on the All-2010s team), and 63.3% won championships.
Lynch, however, did not make the NFL's All-1990s or All-2000s teams. He won a Super Bowl in 2002, but finished his 15-year career with only three more Pro Bowls and one more All-Pro selection than Smith has.
Compared to Butler and the four Hall of Fame safeties who played in the 2000s — Brian Dawkins, Reed, Polamalu and Lynch — Smith ranks third in tackles for loss, third in sacks, fifth in interceptions and second in interceptions returned for touchdowns (four). On a per-game basis, he leads the group in tackles.
"Wherever people want to put me, then put me," Smith said. "But when I get compared to those guys I grew up watching, it's pretty cool. I never thought I'd be in the NFL, let alone being talked about in the same sentence as those guys."
Another All-Pro selection would help his case. More playoff games might help him more: He's played in only six, and every other safety in the 2000s group was in at least 12.
"Pat P. was talking about this the other day: I think he's only played in [three] playoff games in his 11 years," Smith said. "He's been at the top of the game for a long time. Sometimes things just don't work out, and sometimes they do."
Playoff game No. 7 will have to wait. He'll come back at age 33, carrying with him a lesson from Zimmer.
"Sometimes work ethic is enough to create wins," he said. "Don't get carried away thinking you've arrived. That's not how you got there, so it's not how you'll stay there."