Devonta Smith Was The Right Pick

If nothing else, every season the Eagles bye week reminds me of one thing about Philadelphia fans and media alike: If they cannot find drama, they will create it.

 

 

I mean c’mon, what are we even doing here man? I’m not even addressing the Mac Jones line in there because that is the textbook definition of clickbait.

 

Jeff McLane is a respected reporter, but he knew exactly what he was doing when he hit send on this tweet. He wanted to create a stir during a boring bye week. He certainly did just that. I get that it’s part of his job to create attention toward himself and the company he works for to generate interaction. It doesn’t mean I have to like it.

 

Luckily for me, I actually saw a lot of tweets defending the Eagles selection of Devonta Smith over Micah Parsons. I’m not sure if it’s just the Twitter algorithm knowing my opinion before I even do, but that’s a rabbit hole for another time.

 

Don’t get me wrong, Parsons is a fantastic player. As someone who graduated from Penn State last May, I got to see it up close and personal. The only team I didn’t want to see Parsons play for was, of course, the team he currently plays for now: the Dallas Cowboys.

 

If you’ve seen the Cowboys play at all this season, which I’m sure you have given that they are on primetime every other week, you can see how impactful Parsons is as a do-it-all linebacker. He’s a lock to win defensive rookie of the year, and is almost certain to at least be a finalist for defensive player of the year, and maybe even win it.

 

Call me crazy, but I’m still taking Devonta Smith 10/10 times. There are many reasons for this that I will get into why in the paragraphs below, but I’ll sum it up as easily as I possibly can.

 

The Eagles employed four lawn chairs at wide receiver in 2019 and 2020. Remember that quarterback the Eagles used to have that threw for a franchise record in yardage, and didn’t have a single receiver with more than 500 yards? Yeah, that was the only time in the HISTORY of the National Football League that happened.

 

 

Coming into the 2021 draft, Devonta Smith was the best receiver in the country playing in the best conference in college football. He even won the Heisman trophy last year, and was only the third wide receiver in the history of the award to win it, and the first since Desmond Howard took home the hardware in 1991. 

 

So, for those of you keeping track at home, Smith was the first receiver to win the award in 29 years. Twenty-nine years. Listen, I’m no football genius, but I think the marriage between Smith and the Eagles is about as easy as it gets. Why are we trying to plug a square peg into a round hole?

 

Then you throw in the fact that in the process of selecting Smith, Howie Roseman gained another first round pick for the 2022 draft in a trade with Miami, and what are we even questioning here? That’s the best thing Roseman has done in three friggin’ years!

 

Since everyone has seemingly forgotten how good Smith has been this year considering the fact that he only has 81 targets, I’ll remind you with some highlights!

 

 

 

 

Yes, it is worth mentioning that the Eagles have a Jeremiah Trotter-sized hole at the linebacker position. While this position has been the Eagles defensive version of their wide receiver achilles heel, I still argue that getting a legit #1 receiver was more important for THIS TEAM. That might not have been the case for the other 31 teams, but it was the case for THIS team at THIS time.

 

In today’s NFL, the wide receiver position is abundantly more important than linebacker. This isn’t to say that the linebacker is the defensive version of the fullback, but it definitely doesn’t hold the prominence that a #1 receiver does.

 

A big point to this 2021 season was seeing what Jalen Hurts could do as the day one starting quarterback. In order to truly evaluate him, you’ve got to give him legitimate targets to throw to. If the Eagles don’t take Devonta Smith, the Eagles are trotting out a trio of Jalen Reagor, Quez Watkins, spanish Dorial Green-Beckham, and whatever flop of a dude they would have picked in the second or third round.

 

Do I need to remind anyone of what happened at the Meadowlands three weeks ago?

 

 

So, without Smith, not only would the Eagles be without a #1 receiver, they’d be without a guy who even deserves to be a #4 receiver on any other roster.

 

Devonta Smith was the right selection. Period, end of story. If you don’t think so, kick rocks.

 

Also, now that we’re on the topic of Smitty, can Nick Sirianni get the kid the friggin’ football? Four catches in a two game span where the Birds played the Giants and Jets makes me want to vomit. Give the kid the ball.

By Matt Szczypiorski | December 14, 2021
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