Steve Smith upgrades himself again, ’89 percent’ chance he plays
Carolina Panthers’ wide receiver Steve Smith has attached another percentage to the likelihood that he plays on Sunday in the Divisional round of the NFL playoffs against the San Francisco 49ers – this time it’s 89%, according to Peter Schrager at FoxSports.com.
"'There is an 89 percent chance that I play on Sunday," Steve Smith after telling us he randomly assigns percentage numbers to his health.
— Peter Schrager (@PSchrags) January 10, 2014
It became apparent that Smith was assigning percentages arbitrarily when yesterday he announced his knee was only about “57% healthy”, down from “71%” the day before.
The 13th year receiver out of Utah – and Carolina’s all-time leader in receiving yards (12,197) – had stated earlier in the week that there was a “60% chance” he played on Sunday.
Hey, you can’t fault the guy for lacking a sense of humor, right?
Smith is second on the team with 745 receiving yards and 64 receptions this season and is tied for the team-lead in targets, with tight end Greg Olson, with 109.
Of course Smith being more-than-likely to play this week shouldn’t be that much of a surprise considering head coach Ron Rivera’s comments on Wednesday.
"“He wasn’t that limited,” Rivera said of Smith, per ESPN.com.“Probably the biggest thing was we really wanted to get him out there and have him running around, so we limited the number of reps he was out. But for the most part moving around, I thought he looked pretty good.”"