Philadelphia Eagles: Don’t forget to consistently target DeVonta Smith

When it rains, it pours.

After turning in some of the worst football you’ll see for the vast majority of their previous two games, the Philadelphia Eagles‘ offense came alive in a big way against the hapless Detroit Lions, scoring 41 unanswered points to finish off Duce Staley‘s new team 41-6.

The offense moved well thanks to a concerted effort to run the ball early and often, the defensive line came alive and put a heavy dose of pressure on Jared Goff, and most improbably of all, the team cleared the bench to give Jalen Hurts and the starters an early break after a job well done.

It honestly felt like Nick Sirianni, Jonathan Gannon, and company read all of the suggestions they’ve received online and just said, “Hey, let’s do that.”

No matter why it happened, I’m all about it.

Surely this was a bellwether game for the boys in midnight green, but it wasn’t perfect. No, one aspect of the new-look offense that could use some tuning up is the frequency from which the Philadelphia Eagles target 2021 first-round pick, DeVonta Smith.

DeVonta Smith is a volume receiver, the Philadelphia Eagles.

16.

That’s the number of times the Philadelphia Eagles threw the ball versus the Detroit Lions in Week 8.

It’s also, funny enough, three fewer passing attempts than the Eagles threw in the fourth quarter versus the Las Vegas Raiders, and by far the fewest passing attempt by the team on the season.

All in all, after banging the drum for a more balanced offensive attack, I really can’t complain about riding the running game versus a lesser foe, even if it left Miles Sanders surely at home shaking his fist in the air.

What I can quibble with, however, is the lack of balls thrown DeVonta Smith’s way, as the reigning Heisman Trophy winner was only targeted three times and finished out the game with an unremarkable one catch for 15 yards.

This, fortunately, is a new trend for the Eagles but is one that really shouldn’t become a trend moving forward.

You see, through the first seven games of the 2021 NFL season, Smith was targeted by Hurts an average of 7.14 times per game, which ranked first on the team among wide receivers. Smith caught 62 percent of those balls and racked up 391 yards and a touchdown for his efforts.

Are those Ja’Marr Chase numbers? No, but they were good enough to rank first on the Eagles despite Quez Watkins having a 91-yard catch to his credit.

If Smith can keep up his current pace, he’s still likely to become the team’s first 1,000-yard receiver since Jeremy Maclin, but not if he only catches one ball on three targets per game.

The easy solution? Give him more targets, especially across the middle of the field off of play-action. Now that the Eagles have started to establish the run and getting opposing linebackers to think twice before dropping back into coverage, Sirianni can start to fake runs between the tackles, especially under center, and hit a receiver like Smith in space to take advantage of a stacked box. Assuming Jalen Reagor misses some time moving forward, Smith is by far the team’s most dynamic receiver in space and thus could help to get things going in the short-to-intermediate passing game.

If the Eagles can just target Smith between six and eight times a game, especially on YAC-heavy routes, he should have plenty of opportunities to get this going.

So Nick Sirianni, if you are, in fact, reading this, good work in Week 8. You brought a winning game plan to the table despite Miles Sanders’ absence and stuck with it even when the urge to air it out with Gardner Minshew surely struck. My only very minor suggestion is to keep targeting DeVonta Smith moving forward, as he is still the Philadelphia Eagles’ best players and deserves to be fed the ball as such moving forward.