From that day, Smith became one of those guys; all the years of fighting for a place had built up to that point.

Now, it hits differently for Smith.

He admits to becoming a little softer with age, and he is curating his football memories more carefully.

“As I’m getting older, I’m getting more sentimental,” he said. “Less cynical, more sentimental.”

There’s the Tiffany vase he received in honor of winning the triple crown in 2005, for leading the league in receptions, yards, and touchdowns. There are a few other mementos, scattered things around the house. But a lot of it, he’s put away, for fear of being the guy stuck reliving the glory days.

“Now, when I get really old, do you want to be one of those grandpas that say, hey, back in the day Paw-Paw used to get it?” he laughed.

But there are some of those memories that he’s still coming to grips with.

Smith admitted that he’s bothered that there are no pictures of him celebrating the NFC Championship the following week in Philadelphia, partially because the Panthers ran the ball 40 times that day, and Delhomme only threw 14 passes. Smith caught three of them for 26 yards. That was harder for a younger Steve Smith to accept, especially after he had five for 135 yards and a touchdown against Dallas in the wild card round, and then that play against the Rams.

“I’ve never said this publicly, so this would be the very first time,” Smith said. “I was so focused on winning the Super Bowl, going to the Super Bowl, that I didn’t really enjoy any of the journey during the playoffs when we had kind of an inconsistent offense, right? So, when we won the NFC championship game in Philadelphia, you cannot find one picture of me holding that trophy. You cannot find one. Why is that?

“Because we didn’t throw the ball as much, we didn’t have really the passing offensive explosion that we thought we would have. First game against Dallas, throwing the ball all over the lot, obviously against St. Louis, X- Clown, and then, you know, it was an ugly win, right? It was a Foxy win. And I was so irritated by that at the time.”