Alphonso Smith Jr., a former NFL cornerback, has died at age 40.
NBC Sports' ProFootballTalk and Yahoo Sports reported the news. The public record so far gives us a name, a position, and a number: 40. Smith reached the NFL, and that alone sets him apart. He played cornerback, the sport's island position, where a miss is a touchdown and a good day goes unnoticed. The men who survive that job carry something extra. Smith was one of them.
Forty is no age to be leaving. Every teammate, every old coach, every kid who ever watched him play will feel the weight of that number. The details of his career may surface in the coming days, when the people who knew him talk. That is when the name becomes a story again.
There is a particular sadness in a death notice that contains no stat sheet. It reduces a life to a frame. But Alphonso Smith Jr. was more than a roster line. The shape of his story belongs to his family and friends now.
My read: a former NFL cornerback is gone at 40, and that is too young for a man who played a position that leaves no hiding place. His teammates will carry the memory better than any box score could. The fact of his death is settled. His biography is not.
