Ravens wide receiver Steve Smith Sr. acknowledged that Sunday's game against the Cincinnati Bengals is likely the last of his 16-year career.
"I'm about 89 percent sure," said Smith, a reference to his uniform number. "I'm pretty sure I know what I want to do. I've got great support from my family. My wife supports me whichever way I want to go, my boys want me to still play, but there's a little girl named Baylee Smith who wants her daddy home. So, football is a conduit, something that, it's a platform good and bad, but it gives you an opportunity. Football has given me more than I probably can give football back. But for 2016-17 and beyond, it's probably my last game."
Smith grew emotional at several points during his 10-minute news conference.
"It was hard for me as I'm packing up my house here in Baltimore and putting my career in boxes," Smith said. "It's tough, it's emotional."
At age 37, Smith is currently the oldest receiver in the league. He ranks third on the Ravens with 67 receptions, second with 765 receiving yards and leads the team with five touchdown receptions despite missing two games with an ankle injury. Smith has gotten in the end zone in each of his past two games.
"I'm 37 years old and teams are still game-planning me," Smith said. "It doesn't matter about losing a step or not. It's about playing. People can say, 'I'm not as good as I used to be,' but by the end of the day, there are teams hoping to draft a guy like me. I've made my mistakes, I've done things I'm not proud of, but at the end of the day, our uniqueness and our pitfalls, our negative things, our positive things, that's what makes us. I never shied away. I'm good."
Smith has played the past three seasons with the Ravens after 13 prolific years with the Carolina Panthers. He announced before the 2015 campaign that he would retire after the season. However, he tore his Achilles last November.
He rehabilitated the injury and opted to return for one more season to play out the final year of his three-year deal with the Ravens. Several members of the organization had expressed hope that Smith would consider continuing his career. However, the wide receiver's comments Wednesday indicate that he's content moving on.
"I'm going to miss it. I'm going to mourn. Sunday has been part of my life for 16, 20 years," he said. "I played through college, high school. Yeah, I'd be a fool to say I'm not going to miss (it). But there's parts of my body that's going to not miss it. But there's nothing I can do about that. Very rarely do you see 60-year-old men playing football. It's not going to happen and it's not going to start."
