The last time we saw DeVonta Smith in the playoffs, he was hauling in a 46-yard touchdown pass from Jalen Hurts in New Orleans to ice Super Bowl LIX \u2014 a play that will forever be remembered as The Dagger.<\/p>\n
In the spring, Smith was asked where he\u2019d rank that catch in his career and he said he\u2019d put it in his top three.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of them,\u201d Smith said in May.<\/p>\n
Hard to argue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Smith is 27 now and in his fifth NFL season as he gets ready to enter another postseason run, but his reputation as being a clutch playoff performer dates back to his incredible career at Alabama. Remember, this is a guy who caught the 41-yard game-winning touchdown in the National Championship Game as a true freshman in 2018.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s something about the playoffs that Smith loves.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fun, man. It\u2019s fun,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of the thrill you get knowing that it\u2019s win-or-go-home. I think it\u2019s the thrill of it. What\u2019s at stake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before rookie Darius Cooper became Smith\u2019s teammate this season, he watched Smith from afar in big game after big game. Now he gets to see Smith work up close.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe always shows up when the game is on the line,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cWhenever we need him, he gonna show up. He\u2019s been very consistent without that his whole career, college included. He\u2019s definitely a go-to guy in those situations.\u201d<\/p>\n
What makes Smith such a great performer on these big stages?<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s the way you prepare,\u201d Smith said on Friday. \u201cWhen you prepare well and you do everything you\u2019re supposed to do throughout the week, you\u2019re going to go into the game with a lot of confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the NFL, Smith has played in nine playoff games dating back to the 2021 season. His yards-per-game in the playoffs (66.1) is higher than his average in the regular season (62.7) and his yards-per-catch in the playoffs (13.8) is also higher than his average in the regular season (13.0). Smith’s 595 career receiving yards in an Eagles uniform is already a franchise record.<\/p>\n
In each of the four playoff games last year, Smith had 4 catches for 55, 21, 45 and 69 yards. In his two Super Bowl appearances, Smith has been targeted a total of 14 times and has 11 catches for 169 yards and a touchdown.<\/p>\n
All that experience matters.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, definitely,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI think that\u2019s in general. Seeing how guys approach the game and things like that. You don\u2019t try to make it more than what it is. You don\u2019t try to get yourself overhyped for it. But like I say, it\u2019s the thrill of it. It\u2019s the reason why you play this game to be in moments like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Eagles\u2019 offense obviously hasn\u2019t lived up to expectations this season but they still finished with two 1,000-yard receivers. A.J. Brown didn\u2019t play in Week 18 and finished with 1,003 and Smith played in the first quarter in Week 18 to hit the milestone and finished with 1,008.<\/p>\n
Despite some of those struggles this season, the Eagles have a ton of confidence in their top two wideouts going into the playoffs. And if there\u2019s a big moment, they won\u2019t shy away from throwing Smith the ball.<\/p>\n
He always seems to come through.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s just him having confidence in himself and knowing that he\u2019s the guy to go to,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cSame with A.J. We just have two great receivers. I feel like it\u2019s just the confidence aspect and then they just rely on all the work and preparation they put in throughout the week. They just go out there and it\u2019s like second-nature.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last time we saw DeVonta Smith in the playoffs, he was hauling in a 46-yard touchdown pass…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2068],"tags":[25,4904,7,6,242,109,2476],"class_list":{"0":"post-666145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-eagles","8":"tag-eagles","9":"tag-eagles-blog","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","14":"tag-philadelphiaeagles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115870929060945798","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}