Eagles WR DeVonta Smith caught just one pass for a loss of 2 yards in Sunday's lopsided victory over the Giants. His biggest problem was low team passing volume. QB Jalen Hurts threw just 14 passes for the game. WR A.J. Brown led the team with 5 targets. RB Saquon Barkley followed with 3 targets, and Smith was the only other Eagle to see more than 1.
This marked just the second time in his career that Smith has dipped below 3 targets in a game.
But A.J. Brown's 14-6 target edge in two games back from his hamstring injury give him a huge target-share edge: 35.9% vs. 15.4%.
That gap wasn't nearly so large across the past two seasons, though. And we should bet on it closing the rest of the way.
But it's also worth noting that the Eagles are passing at a far lower rate than last year.
This season finds Philly at just 46.5% neutral pass rate, sixth-lowest in the league.
Last year, the Eagles finished at 57.9% -- sixth-highest in the league.
This year's offense, of course, went without Brown for three games and without Smith as well for one of those. So we're still learning exactly what to expect in terms of play balance, especially in the first year of OC Kellen Moore.
But we probably need to lower at least our volume expectations for Smith a bit. High-upside matchups with the Bengals and Jaguars the next two weeks will make him tough to bench, though.
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