Nick Sirianni Understands He Must Get DeVonta Smith Involved

Nick Sirianni noted that the Eagles did many good things offensively in the 38-35 season-opening win over the Detroit Lions.

That stands to reason when you pile up 30-plus on the scorecard with 455 total yards, two 90-yard rushers, and a franchise record for receiving yards by a debuting player.

“You come away from that game and I felt good,” Sirianni said on Monday. “I told the offense, we did so many good things. We did so many good things.

"… I came out of that game thinking, okay, we have communication issues to clean up but man, we ran the ball well. We were pretty efficient passing the ball. We were great on third down. We were really good in the red zone. We had a really good two-minute drive to get points at the end of the half. When you end with the ball in your hand in a four-minute drive, that is huge, huge, huge.”

The one thing missing was the partridge in the pear tree which is code for DeVonta Smith and the head coach is aware of it.

Somehow the Eagles’ second-year ascending WR played 74 of the team’s 77 offensive snaps in the game and came out of it with an 0-for, no receptions on four targets. A.J. Brown played seven fewer snaps than Smith and piled up the record for newcomers with 10 receptions on 13 targets for 155 yards.

“There [are] so many good things we did, but coming away, you're like DeVonta Smith didn't get any catches. Sometimes you don't feel that in the game,” Sirianni said. “He has to touch the ball. There's no doubt about it. He has to touch the ball.”

Smith touched the football in every game as a rookie but the low-water mark was ironically in Detroit with just one reception. That, however, was tied more to the Eagles' dominance in the running game against the Lions in a 44-6 rout.

Some of Smith's issues on Sunday can just be explained by Brown’s success.

When a superstar is putting up those numbers and the Detroit defense is showing no ability to stop it, why consciously move away from it?

“It's just the way the game went,” said Sirianni. “When we looked at it, he did have the four targets, but there was a handful of other things that were called for him, and for whatever reason – there are so many different reasons of why it doesn't go to him and for whatever reason, it didn't here, and we had some other opportunities to get it to him.

“Again, there are multiple reasons why it didn't. A lot of these plays were still run through him.”

Sirianni emphasized that it’s not time to sound the alarm bell yet.

“It seemed to time up perfectly: A.J. had this huge game and DeVonta didn't touch the ball at all; oh, my goodness, they are never going to use DeVonta Smith again,” the coach deadpanned. “I can promise you that's not the case.

“Him, A.J., and [TE] Dallas [Goedert] are who the offense will run through, who the pass offense will run through, and it just was the perfect storm [Sunday] with where he didn't get any touches.”

In the modern NFL where full-field progressions gave generally turned into high-low reads with the occasional outlet for young quarterbacks, it’s the coaches who have to show the discipline to make sure to get others involved and that includes perceived WR 3 Quez Watkins as well, who wasn’t even targeted in Detroit despite playing 41 snaps

Smith, though, is clearly the headliner when it comes to needing increased traffic.

“That's my job to make sure that he gets the touches, and we'll fix that,” said the head coach. “... We must. We have to because you never want to be one-dimensional and let them say, ‘Hey, we are taking this away or taking that away.’

“DeVonta Smith is not a good playmaker; [he’s] a great playmaker. I think everybody in this city saw that on hand last year.”

-John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's Eagles Today and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Sports. You can listen to John, alongside legendary sports-talker Jody McDonald, every morning from 8-10 on ‘Birds 365,” streaming live on YouTube.com and JAKIBSports.com. You can reach John at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen

Add us as a preferred source on Google