Jay Glazer noted that Aldon Smith’s inner strength has been a focus of his return to the NFL

The last week or so has been a busy one for Aldon Smith as he was officially reinstated back into the NFL. His road to the league has not been an easy one over the last five years, he last played in 2015, and there are many people rooting for him to have success in the here and now as a result of it.

It’s so hard to know what the Cowboys are going to get when thinking about Smith’s return to the field. The reality is that he hasn’t played professional football in five years and playing in the NFL is no easy task. What could he realistically be from a physical perspective?

We have talked several times before about how Smith has been training with Jay Glazer at his gym. Glazer has worked with many prominent athletes in terms of their physical shape, but he also does work out of the gym that is worth commending.

Glazer has an MVP foundation that is focused on merging veterans back into society. Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy has funded work for this before and Aldon Smith has been a big part of this program recently as well.

In his latest mailbag for The Athletic, Jay Glazer was asked about Aldon Smith and if he could help the Cowboys offset the loss of Robert Quinn in free agency.

I do, and I know firsthand how strong he is. We got Smith up to 287 pounds. He’s so incredibly strong, and the best part is he’s a lot stronger behind his rib cage. We helped him build himself up from the inside out. We didn’t just want to make him physically stronger and faster. We really wanted to build up his emotional and inner strength. He’s vulnerable now. Vulnerability is real strength — not muscles but vulnerability. He has a new purpose in life. He wants to use his experiences to help others, so he has a different motivation. He came to two different MVPs in the last week to tell all of our combat veterans he was reinstated. He wanted to share it with them and thank them and tell everyone how grateful he is.

Gratitude is a big thing, folks. Do not take it lightly. For Smith to come on and continue to tell everyone how grateful he is empowered a bunch of combat vets who really needed it going into Memorial Day. I think Smith is a lot happier on the inside, which allows him to do his job better. On the outside, I’ve trained over 1,200 pro athletes in my MMA program. Smith is probably in the top five as far as guys who have put their hands on me. He’s had four years off so you can look at that as he’ll be rusty or you can look at that and say his body has been saved from four years of impact. I am really excited to see what he can do with the Cowboys. Nothing would make me happier than to go down to Orlando to the Pro Bowl with him in January. That would be quite the feat. By the way, Smith is a beautiful soul. When he got his contract with the Cowboys, he called me and asked me if he could sign it at my house, asking if my son was there. He wanted to sign it in front of my son so my son could understand what his dad helped make happen. That’s pretty damn special and beautiful for a guy to do that and to think about my son. That’s gratitude back. That’s beauty. If I’m an offensive lineman, I wouldn’t want Smith putting his hands on me this year, nope. But regardless of what he does on a football field, he’s already had an amazing journey back.

Glazer notes that Smith is much stronger internally, specifically behind his rib cage. Again what Smith is trying to do is undoubtedly difficult, but in targeting specific areas to hone strength he seemingly has as good of a shot as one feasibly could.

It also says a lot about the perspective that Smith has these days that he wanted Glazer’s son to see him sign his contract with the Dallas Cowboys. Smith is clearly grateful to Jay Glazer for helping him re-position himself to play in the National Football League once again.