Devonta Smith has had a modestly productive, albeit relatively disappointing, season to date. Drafted as the 13th receiver off the board on average in fantasy land this offseason, his performance so far has dramatically under paced that. Coming into Week 12 he’s been the 33rd highest scoring player at his position in PPR formats. Such a discrepancy may be causing his believers to lose faith. This is not what drafters of Eagles fans were expecting following his breakout second half to come last season.
Things may be about to turn in a big way, however. Through the first 10 weeks this season Devonta sits at just over 13 PPR points per game. While disappointing, this is nearly a full point more than what he averaged during the same span in 2022, before going scorched earth with over 18 ppg down the stretch. Strangely enough, a nearly identical twist of fate, at a nearly identical point in time, may help spring a nearly identical turnaround in fortune.
In 2022, while sharing the field with AJ Brown and Dallas Goedert, from weeks 1-10 Devonta Smith ran a route on 95% of drop backs earning 23% of the teams’ targets and 24% of air yards. He posted above average efficiency earning 1.81 yards per route run. Then, Dallas Goedert sustained an injury knocking him out from Week 11 to Week 16. Low and behold, Goedert is again slated to miss time at the exact same point in time this season.
Following the injury in 2022 Devonta took flight. While continuing to run a full slate of routes, he became an absolute target hog. His target market share jumped to 28% with the air yard share exploding to 39% during that time. For context, those numbers are nearly identical to the 28% and 40% respectively, posted by Justin Jefferson in 2022. Usually as volume increases, we tend to see efficiency regress. Devonta not only sustained, but increased, his efficiency on the added volume with 2.12 yards per route run. This boosted his fantasy scoring by 33% up to 16 ppg. With Goedert back in the lineup from weeks 16-18 Devonta continued to soar. While his air yardage share settled between the two extremes at 30%, his target share actually increased even further to a dominant 35% to close the final 3 games of the season. His efficiency spike continued as well, as his yards per route run raised to an incredibly elite 2.92, a top 5 mark in the league among receivers with at least 10 targets during that time. During this same stretch he put up 22 ppg – rarified air during some of the most important weeks on the fantasy calendar. This, all while sharing the field with arguably the best wide receiver in football.
So why the jump? From weeks 1-10 Devonta was being used as an underneath threat with a shallow average depth of target just over 8 yards. His usage was also restricted to the outside, seeing a slot rate on only 21% of routes. With Goedert out, he occupied an entirely different role within the offense as 31% of his routes came from the slot, and his average target depth ballooned to over 13 yards down the field. This change in usage was interesting as it stood in stark contrast to that of AJ Brown whose role remain largely unaffected. As Goedert returned, so did Devonta’s prior usage, dipping back down in both slot rate and ADOT (although higher than the pre-Goedert injury levels). However, as mentioned, this did little to impact his scoring as he continued dominating targets despite the increased competition.
So far, in 2023, Devonta’s usage does look more like the second half than the first of 2022, but it’s still not quite what it was. His slot rate sits just over 28% while he carries an ADOT of 12, both down from the elevated heights without Goedert last year. A slight uptick in those figures and we could be looking at a near identical role to that of the one that turned him in to a monster to close last season. Devonta’s ability to dominate targets has also, understandably, not sustained as AJ Brown has asserted himself in his second year in Philly. But he has maintained 30% of the air yards, and the expected shift to more slot work should help him consolidate some of the vacated volume from Goedert, allowing his current 21% target share to raise substantially.
With the bye week allowing this offense to recalibrate after another Goedert injury, an increasingly healthy Jalen Hurts, a more condensed offense with less target competition, and a schedule that promises they will be pushed consistently, a post-bye week bump of epic proportions may be in order. Even with some expected regression from the 18ppg he scored in 2022’s second half would place him firmly in the top 12 of the position and justify those that took the plunge. The bet here is 17 ppg the rest of the way with another top 10 second half pay off incoming. As they alluded to with the failed endzone alley-oop, AJ Brown may be King – but there’s nothing wrong with Flash. Keep the faith.