New on Sports Illustrated: ‘I View the World Differently Now’: Rick Smith’s Football Sabbatical

A classic front-office grinder—passionate, ambitious, driven—Rick Smith lived football 24/7 as he dedicated himself to building the Texans into a contender. That changed last fall when his wife was diagnosed with cancer. Stepping away for a year, the man who was once the NFL’s youngest GM has found new priorities and new balance in life, even as a season is set to kick off without him for the first time in more than two decades