Eagles DeVonta Smith a Top-10 NFL WR? He 'Humbly' Believes It
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PHILADELPHIA - Go ahead and make a list of the top 10 receivers in the NFL. Is DeVonta Smith on it? He believes he should be.
The Philadelphia Eagles receiver will enter his third year following a season in which he had a team-high 95 catches for 1,196 yards and seven touchdowns. Those catches came on 136 targets, which is a catch rate of nearly 70%.
By way of comparison, A.J. Brown had 88 receptions on 145 targets for a catch rate just above 60 percent.
When asked if he should be considered a top 10 receiver in the NFL on a recent podcast of ‘I Am Athlete,’ Smith said he was. During a Wednesday meet-the-press session, Smith was asked about that self-assessment.
“I think as you go on, and you continue to raise your level of play,” he said. “I think that comes into it. ... That’s just being confident in myself and my abilities. I’m pretty sure you won’t have many guys come up here and say they don’t think they’re not (top 10 at their positions). Just being confident in my abilities and just raising my play.”
Smith doesn’t waste time with words. He mostly keeps his answers short and to the point. There is very little filibustering with him. On the field, though, he speaks loudly.
Watching Smith work can be an electric experience. He has the ability to control his body in such ways as to make difficult catches look routine and his footwork near the out-of-bounds boundaries is pure ballet.
He is far from a finished product, though.
“I’d say the mental side of the game,” he answered when asked what the next step is in his game. “Continue to get mentally sharp in my preparation, and going out there and playing, so I can see things faster.
"It’s recognition of the defenses. Teams change every year. A lot of coordinators change, and things like that. So, a team that you may have played in the past might not be running the same schemes and things like that.”
In addition to that, Smith has spent a good part of his offseason rehabbing a toe injury that happened late last season. After a lot of ice and massages, he said the toe is good, so he should be on the field when OTAs begin on Tuesday.
So, go ahead and make those top 10 lists and leave Smith off it at your own risk.
It won’t bother him, because he already is confident that he belongs there, saying, “I kind of always felt like that to myself, humbly.”
Ed Kracz covers the Philadelphia Eagles for SI's EaglesToday.
Please follow him and our Eagles coverage on Twitter at @kracze.
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