4-EYED ROOKIE SNAPSHOT: DeVonta Smith

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With the 10th overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, the Philadelphia Eagles selected DeVonta Smith out of the University of Alabama.

Apparently, some people are sleeping on DeVonta Smith(?!) Now for the life of me, I cannot understand why, so, I’m going to make the case for the 2020 Heisman Trophy winner and explain why the Slim Reaper should be a rookie YOU are targeting this off-season! 

Bama

Alabama has a habit of throwing out talented pass catchers, huh. During DeVonta Smith’s time with the Crimson Tide he shared the field with four other wide receivers selected in the first round of an NFL Draft. Calvin Ridley, Henry Ruggs, Jerry Jeudy and Jaylen Waddle were all top-30 selections, with the latter three and DeVonta Smith being top-15 draft picks it’s easy to see why an often used and important metric such as Breakout Age can be overlooked in this particular scenario. What cannot be overlooked though is Smith’s career at Alabama. From entering the spotlight with his National Championship winning overtime touchdown catch as a true freshman against Georgia in 2018 all the way to signing off his ‘Bama career with another National Championship victory. In that championship, Smith won the Offensive MVP award for the game with an absolutely ridiculous 12 catch, 215 yards and three touchdown first-half against an overmatched Ohio State. Everything in between those two moments, Smith has performed like a future NFL superstar at the Wide Receiver position. 

In a Collegiate career that improved every year, this table below shows how impressive Smith’s junior & senior seasons were:

SEASON	RECEPTIONS	RECEIVING YARDS	TOUCHDOWNS	AGE
Freshman 2017	8	160	3	19
Sophomore 2018	42	693	6	20
Junior 2019	68	1,256	14	21
Senior 2020	117	1,856	23	22

Smith’s record-breaking senior campaign saw him become only the fourth wide receiver, and the first since 1991, to win the Heisman Trophy.

DRAFT CAPITAL

DeVonta Smith may have been the third wide receiver off the board in the 2021 NFL Draft but he still carries a Top-10 selection draft capital which is extremely coveted in Fantasy Football. Not only that, but the Philadelphia Eagles deemed it necessary to strike a trade with NFC East rival the Dallas Cowboys to be able to select the former ‘Bama star. It’s suspected they felt the need to make a move back into the top-10 so they could get ahead of the Giants, another NFC East franchise, who were reportedly going to take Smith had he fallen to them one pick later at 11th overall. 

DeVonta Smith is expected to leap right atop the Eagles wide receiver depth chart even as a rookie. The underwhelming positional talent around him means he has little competition for that number one receiver tag, and whilst that means we should see a steady stream of targets per game, especially with a quarterback who has at least some prior familiarity with, it also means he’s likely to be up against better cornerbacks and potentially defensive schemes tailored to take him out of the game. 

It’s interesting to note the real lack of production both on the field and in Fantasy Football the Eagles wide receivers corps supplied in 2020. The below table shows all four of Philadelphia’s wide receivers who managed to play in double-digit games last season and their Fantasy Football relevant stats.

Name	Games	Targets	Receptions	Yards	TD’s	FPTS/G
Greg Ward	16	79	53	419	6	6.7
Travis Fulgham	13	67	38	539	4	7.5
Jalen Reagor	11	54	31	396	1	6.5
John Hightower	13	29	29	167	0	1.8

As the above table shows, it’s hard to pinpoint a real contender for the team’s WR1 role that Smith would have to beat out. And while Travis Fulgham’s 7.5 fantasy points per game aren’t horrible, it’s important to remember that the bulk of his production came between Weeks 4-8, with all four of his double-digit point hauls coming during these weeks. His lowest points haul during this five-game hot-streak was 7.3 in Week 7 vs the Giants, whilst his highest points haul outside of these weeks for the rest of the season was just three points. In fact from weeks 10-17, Fulgham posted just as many <1 point game week scores as he did games with over one fantasy point. My point is that even the Eagles most productive Fantasy Football wide receiver in 2020 only really produced Fantasy-worthy production in five games. 

There’s a reason Philadelphia traded back into the top-10 to select a wide receiver and that’s because they need a guy who scares a defense and can help them improve on the paltry 14 receiving touchdowns scored by the entirety of the wide receiver room in 2020.

SKILLSET

DeVonta Smith is a complete wide receiver with an elite skill set. He has the ball skills, route-running, release and body control that you look for in an ‘NFL ready’ receiver coming out of college. The 2020 Heisman Trophy winner unsurprisingly posted the highest PFF receiving grade (95.6) ever in the PFF College era. Smith also added weight to the “complete receiver” tag by leading the country in deep (20+ yards) catches & yards, as well as also leading in screen catches & yards. Not only that, but Smith finished fifth in the nation for yards out of the slot despite only being tied 14^th in the number of catches he made in the slot in 2020. This route versatility and ability to line up anywhere and produce is a fantastic and valuable asset to have and translates to Smith being a threat no matter where he’s lined up. 

SIZE

Now, the one thing that seems to be the sticking point for most people when it comes to DeVonta Smith is his size. Smith is listed at 6 ft. and a tick under 175lbs and with his wiry frame looks like he might even be lighter than that, so it’s fair that questions may be asked about how this undersized pass catcher will handle the physicality of the NFL. 

One thing you notice about Smith when you put on the tape though is just how well he seems to take contact. He doesn’t shirk or shy away from hits and doesn’t appear slow to get up when tackled either. In other words, he plays bigger and tougher than his size would suggest and that’s shown not only by his work in the slot but also his contested catch ability. 

Smith posted a 90.0+ PFF grade on contested catches over the past two seasons and caught 49% of the contested catch targets. These statistics are eerily similar to the seemingly consensus wide receiver in the 2021 NFL Draft, Ja’Marr Chase, who was drafted fifth by the Cincinnati Bengals. Chase was spoken about as a true number 1 receiver who can be physically dominant at the next level and even though he is smaller in stature, Smith should also be in that conversation. 

SUMMARY 

We have an elite wide receiver prospect, coming off of arguably the greatest single-season posted by a wide receiver in college football history who has the draft capital and path to targets we could only wish for. Add in that he has a quarterback he has familiarity with and I don’t understand how he’s falling towards the end of the first round in most 12-team Superflex leagues. I expect Smith to be a PPR monster in this Eagles offense, simply because of the lack of competition for targets and his ability to line up anywhere.

Packers superstar Davante Adams said it best when he tweeted

“From now on if u misspell my name make sure it’s DeVonta cuz he that boy”

after Smith’s historic National Championship first half. I will even reiterate it for you: Don’t sleep on the Slim Reaper or he might just kill you come playoff time.