DeVonta Smith on his next level, A.J. Brown and Nick Sirianni originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
DeVonta Smith is three years into his NFL career and he’s been everything as advertised.
But he still thinks there’s another level to take his game.
“I would say, yeah,” Smith said to NBC Sports Philadelphia on Friday. “You’ve seen it at times. But I mean, that just comes down to getting the ball in space. That’s all it is.”
The Eagles used the No. 10 overall pick back in 2021 to select Smith coming off his Heisman Trophy season. As a rookie, he was the No. 1 receiver in the Eagles’ offense and caught 64 passes for 916 yards. But he’s been even better the last two years since the addition of A.J. Brown, going for over 1,000 yards in 2022 and 2023.
How does Smith hit that level?
“I would say just continue to be on the same page as the quarterback,” he answered. “Having the timing down pat, just being able to make sure that we’re on the same page, that we’re able to speak the same language.”
Smith has known Jalen Hurts since their time together back at Alabama and Hurts has been the starting quarterback for the first three seasons of his NFL career.
But Smith said there’s always work to do between a quarterback and a receiver no longer how long they’ve been playing together.
“You’re never where you want to be,” Smith said. “There’s always room for improvement. We definitely can get better in that, always.”
Smith’s best season came in 2022 when he had 1,196 yards and what really stood out was his yards after catch. He averaged 5.2 yards after catch per reception in 2022 but that was down to 3.6 YAC/R in 2023. That was likely just a product of an offense that Nick Sirianni admitted got “stale” during the season.
The Eagles’ solution to inject some fresh ideas into the offense going into 2024 was to make a significant coaching staff switch. They fired offensive coordinator Brian Johnson after one season and replaced…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/devonta-smith-next-level-j-120000639.html
Author : NBC Sports Philadelphia
Publish date : 2024-02-03 12:00:00
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