It was June 30, 2025, when Jonnu Smith was traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers ahead of the 2025 season. But for Smith, the moment wasn’t really about football. It wasn’t about being reunited with Arthur Smith, his former position coach and OC with the Tennessee Titans and later the Atlanta Falcons. What mattered more was location. The trade brought Smith to within an hour’s drive of his older brother, Wayne Smith, who was entering the final year of his incarceration.

On the very day the trade became official, Jonnu made their daily call and shared the news. Wayne’s reaction said it all. “He just couldn’t believe it,” Jonnu recalled earlier. “He was like, ‘Wow, are you kidding me?'” Now, with his brother just months away from being released, Smith has started opening up about one of the toughest stretches of his life, when his brother was sentenced to prison, and everything around him changed.

“My brother went down in 2010,” Jonnu shared on The Christian Kuntz Podcast. “And I got sent to Florida. He sat in a county prison for five years waiting for a sentence. You know how the system says innocent until proven guilty. And I don’t know if you guys are familiar with the prison system, but the county jail is like the worst. It’s like, guys, when they get to county jail, they’re like, ‘Man, can you please just sentence me, so I can get upstate or wherever I’m going.’ Because the conditions are horrible. And my brother sat in the county jail for 5 years, waiting on his sentence.”

Wayne Smith was reportedly charged with third-degree m***der and other offenses stemming from an incident in 2010. According to the Pennsylvania Superior Court, a street brawl broke out on June 5, 2010, after David Dial uttered a r*cial epithet toward a member of Wayne’s household. The fight involved multiple people, but it escalated to fatal gunshot wounds to Dial, setting the stage for Wayne’s first trial.

After the incident, Wayne was arrested and held in Philadelphia County Jail. The case, meanwhile, slowly worked its way through the system. That stretch lasted nearly five years. And it included multiple eyewitnesses, some of whom later changed or recanted statements. That forced prosecutors to reassess testimony. Those complications ultimately led to a hung jury in the first trial. By 2015, while Jonnu was in his junior year of college, his older brother was sentenced to 25–50 years.

“I’m now in my junior year or going into my junior year in college, and he got sentenced,” Jonnu added. “We were going through that entire process, and financially, we weren’t able to hire the best attorneys. So, we wind up having to get a public defender. That’s not the best situation when you’re fighting third-degree m**der. It’s not the best situation to be in…My brother was sentenced in 2015, after he sat for 5 years, he was sentenced to 25 to 50 years.”

Wayne was convicted in 2015 of third-degree m***der, aggravated a**ault, possession of an instrument of crime, and carrying a firearm on public streets for his role in the 2010 street fight. Financially, though, the Smith household simply wasn’t in a position to secure high-powered legal representation.

Jonnu, along with his brother and four sisters, was raised by their mother, Karen, after a tow truck accident claimed the life of their father, Wayne Sr. At the time of his brother’s sentencing, Jonnu was still in college. When the verdict came down, he returned home to be with his mother and sisters. That moment reshaped his priorities and sharpened his focus and goals.

“…Once that happened, the NFL was always a goal of mine,” Jonnu added. “But that notch just turned up for me because I had to be in a position where I could fight for my brother’s freedom. And it’s hard to fight if you ain’t got no money. It’s hard to fight.”

And since making his NFL debut nearly a decade ago, Smith has carried that responsibility with him. And while Wayne was originally sentenced to 25–50 years, his path shifted after intervention from the Conviction Integrity Unit introduced by Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner. Due to previously undisclosed evidence, Wayne was granted the right to a new trial.

Instead of relitigating the case, he accepted a revised sentence of 16 to 32 years. With 15 years already served (five in county jail and ten at SCI Fayette), Wayne is now set to be released in July 2026. Jonnu was playing in the Pro Bowl in January 2025 when he first learned his brother’s sentence was eligible to be reduced.

“It just obviously made the weekend far better than I ever imagined,” he had said.

Looking back now, it’s clear that Smith has endured one of the hardest chapters of his life. But this past year has carried a very different kind of weight. One built on hope, timing, and a long-awaited sense of closure.

The reason the 2025 season is extra special for Jonnu Smith

Jonnu Smith has bounced around the league over the past few years. He spent time with the New England Patriots, the Atlanta Falcons, and the Miami Dolphins. But the 2025 season with the Steelers turned out to be different. And for Smith, it went far beyond football.

For the first time in years, the Steelers’ tight end no longer had to wait for the offseason, fly to Philadelphia, and then drive hours across the state with his family just to see his brother, Wayne. Now, visits could happen more often. He was only an hour away.

“It was God moving the chessboard,” Jonnu and Wayne’s mom, Karen, said. “I was stunned. And all of us just talked about it, the entire family, we could not believe it, because they’ll be in the same state now. How ironic is that? And they’ll be able to see each other more. He’ll be able to watch his brother play. And even Wayne said that, ‘I get to see him play the entire game, not just the highlights.”

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In his final year of incarceration, Wayne was finally able to watch his little brother live out his NFL dream. Still, there were limitations. The Steelers’ off day falls on Tuesdays, and SCI-Fayette does not allow visitors on that day. That obstacle sparked an idea for Jonnu: Turn the visit into something bigger.

On October 7, Jonnu, along with Steelers teammates Pat Freiermuth, Connor Heyward, Corliss Waitman, Matt Sokol, and Calvin Anderson, visited the prison to hold an outreach event with inmates. The six players then sat down with a small group of 12 inmates, including Wayne, for about half an hour. And just like that, the Steelers’ decision to trade for Jonnu Smith ended up meaning far more than production.

It brought a family closer during the final stretch of a long sentence. Now, Wayne Smith looks ahead to July 2026 and a fresh start. It’s the outcome his little brother hoped for, prayed for, and worked toward for years.