Can DeVonta Smith go Where no Eagles Rookie WR has Gone Before?
PHILADELPHIA – Jalen Reagor had a turn to carve his name into the Eagles’ record books as a rookie. He fell well below expectations, and, yes, missing five games due to injury and some internal dysfunction didn’t help his cause.
Next up to make a run at some rookie records, some of which are decades old, is DeVonta Smith.
Sooner or later, marks set decades ago by first-year pass-catcher will eventually fall, and perhaps Smith is the one who will finally do it.
There doesn’t seem to be any downside to the Heisman Trophy-winning receiver out of the University of Alabama, except maybe his weight of 166 pounds. That hasn’t been a detriment, so far, despite playing in the rugged SEC.
“I don't care too much about what people say about my weight,” he said shortly after the Eagles traded up two spots to make him the 10th overall selection in the 2021 NFL Draft on Thursday. “I understand reporters have a job. It’s their job to make a story. I just let them do their job. I can't get mad at them for doing their job.”
Inside, though, Smith does a slow burn over the whole weight thing.
“DeVonta’s been hearing he’s too small for years and it’s definitely a sore point with him because there’s really nothing he can do about it,” said Christopher Walsh, who has been covering the Crimson Tide since 2004 and is the publisher of SI BamaCentral.
“He has great hands, runs great routes, and even last year, Jaylen Waddle was going to be the most exciting player, he was going to be the one. No, it was Smith. He kept plugging along and answering his critics. On top of that, I’ll tell you flat out, he’s a really nice kid, just a totally nice kid.”
Not a single rookie has topped 1,000-yards receiving in Eagles history.
The closes anyone came, and it is still the record heading into this season, was 2008, when DeSean Jackson collected 912.
The other two rookie marks Smith will try to break are for catches, which was set at 81 by tight end Keith Jackson in 1988, and touchdowns, a record established by Calvin Williams, who had nine in 1990.
Jordan Matthews came close to passing each of them in 2014 when the second-round pick had 67 receptions for 872 yards and eight touchdowns.
Reagor, taken with the 21st overall pick in the 2020 draft, had just 31 catches for 396 and only one touchdown, though he added another with a punt return.
Odds released by www.BetOnline.ag placed the over/under number on Smith’s receiving yards at 900 with his over/under TD total set at seven. Last year, Reagor’s odds in the days after him being drafted were 700 yards and four scores.
The same betting service also set Smith’s odds of winning the NFL’s Offensive Rookie of the Year award at 12-1, which are the same odds that the No. 4 pick of the Falcons, Kyle Pitts, has. Of the players ahead of Smith and Pitts, only one is a non-quarterback and that is the Bengals' Ja’Marr Chase at 9-1.
Six times in the last 11 years the award has gone to a quarterback. The last non-quarterback to win was the Giants RB Saquon Barkley in 2018 and the only three WRs who did it this century were Aquan Boldin in 2003, Percy Harvin in 2009, and Odell Beckham, Jr. in 2014.
“I'm glad he's on my team,” said Eagles sixth-round pick JaCoby Stevens, who matched up with Smith during his time at LSU. “I'm glad that I have to try to go against him in practice and that’s not so much as public as the game, because he's somebody like I said in zooms when they asked me who is the hardest person I've covered in 2020 or defended in 2020, and that was DeVonta Smith hands down.
“Just because he can run every route. He makes every route look the same. We hear often he's a quarterback at receiver. When he's running the crossing routes at Alabama, he knows the holes and the gaps in the zone, and believe it or not, a lot of receivers don't know that.
“So, he knows when to sit down and when to idle his speed back to appear open for his quarterback. I'm happy that DeVonta Smith is on my team. That's one less guy that I have to worry about covering in the game in a sense in this draft class.”
Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s EagleMaven and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.
