Charlie Smyth knows that in the NFL, promise only buys you so much time. After a rookie season that showed potential, the New Orleans Saints kicker is locked in on honing his craft in the off-season.
"It's good to be back and now it's time to get back to work and getting better," he said. "That's where the focus is at now. Just working on some little things."
That starts with an honest look at his past performance. "Looking back on my film last year, what was my typical ball path doing? On the misses, what happened there? Just literally looking at every little thing — my leg path on swings, diving into all the technical details of kicking. That's what I'm doing now. I'm playing about with a couple of things and trying to come up with a settled routine. Taking the tape measure and saying, this is how far away I want to be from the ball on every kick. Is it 125 inches? Is it 110? Working out which one suits you. That's something I've only started to do maybe this past couple of months."
Consider the work, voluminous and detailed as it may be, a bit of an exhale for Smyth, who has had a whirlwind offseason.
He returned to Northern Ireland this offseason as somewhat of a celebrity. Being the first Gaelic football player to play in an NFL game and hailing from a small town (Mayobridge, Newry, County Down — population 1,162, according to the 2021 census) pretty much guaranteed a spotlight during his two-month homecoming.
But he might not have foreseen the totality of the reception, after making 12 of 16 field goal attempts — including a 47-yard game-winner against Carolina in a 20-17 victory on Dec. 14 — and all 13 extra point attempts in six games during his rookie season.
"This offseason was different just because of the fact that I'd played some games, and going home and seeing so many (No.) 39 jerseys back in Ireland and in my hometown, especially...it was pretty fun," Smyth said. "But it was different. It was brilliant to see my friends and family who couldn't get over and watch some of the games. I'm just delighted with how they've treated me since I went home."
Besides Mayobridge, other stops included six days in the San Francisco Bay area to attend Super Bowl LX, played at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., and a two-week visit in Ireland with his girlfriend. And there were requests to be filled — visits to his primary school and high school, his football club and partaking of some flag football events, so many that not everything could not be accommodated.
Heady stuff for a player whose NFL journey began in 2024.
"When I first started watching American football in Ireland, it was a very niche thing to do," he said. "It was like, nobody else was doing it. I was watching highlights and my classmates were, 'What is that you're watching?' Like, 'What is that?' Now, it's different. People actually realize that, OK, the NFL is the world's biggest league. And the fact that there's somebody from their part of the world playing in it, they see the value in it.
"It's been really fun, the coverage has just been unbelievable. There's a lot of people at home that are putting a lot of work into the marketing side of the game — more coverage and more social media clips and people are sort of recognizing what you're doing as a result of that. Even if that wasn't the case, I would still love to be over here doing what I'm doing. It's been a pipe dream for a long time and the fact now that you actually have some games under your belt is pretty cool to say. (But) definitely not satisfied with just those six games. It's time to push on."
New Orleans — his adopted home — took note and appreciates the push.
"The amount of support I've been getting from the people in general...it's been unbelievable," Smyth said. "It does feel like a second home – even when I got off the plane (back in New Orleans), it was like, 'We're back.' It was like a sigh, 'It's good to be back, doing what I do best.'"
