If we are seeing the final few games in the end of the career of future Hall of Famer Harrison Smith, the Hitman is going out with a bang.
The announcement has just come down that Smith has been named the NFC’s Defensive Player of the Week for his performance against the Detroit Lions in Week 17, where he helped lead a Minnesota Vikings defense that suffocated one of the NFL’s top offenses all afternoon in the team’s 23-10 victory over the Lions on Christmas Day.
In the victory, Smith had three tackles, including two tackles for loss, an interception, a quarterback sack, and three passes defended. In all, the Vikings defense forced six turnovers from a Lions offense that had only turned the ball over eight times in the fifteen games prior to that.
Smith is the fourth player to win a weekly honor for the team this season. Such honors have also gone to quarterback J.J. McCarthy (Offensive Player of the Week, Week 1), cornerback Isaiah Rodgers (Defensive Player of the Week, Week 3), and defensive lineman Levi Drake Rodriguez (Special Teams Player of the Week, Week 9).
Surprisingly, this is just the third time in his career that Smith has garnered Defensive Player of the Week honors. He also got the award in Week 16 of the 2017 season, when he intercepted two passes in a 16-0 win over Green Bay at Lambeau Field, and in Week 1 of the 2018 season, when he recorded an interception and a sack in a 24-16 win over San Francisco at U.S. Bank Stadium.
If Smith can get his hands on one more interception in Sunday’s season finale against Green Bay, he will join Charles Woodson, Ronde Barber, and Larry Wilson as the fourth member of the 40-interception, 20-sack club. He currently has 39 career interceptions (most among active players) and 21.5 career quarterback sacks.
The rumors are, once again, swirling that this could be Smith’s last season with the Vikings. He’s taken pay cuts in each of the last two years to come back to the team, and there hasn’t been any word on his status for 2026. Someone of Smith’s status, however, has pretty much earned the right to take as much time as he needs to come to the decision that he feels is best for himself and his family going forward.
Congratulations to Harrison Smith on being named the NFC’s Defensive Player of the Week for Week 17 of the 2025 NFL season!
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