No excuses from DeVonta Smith: ‘I just f— dropped them'

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — As A.J. Brown spoke to a group of reporters crowded around his locker at MetLife Stadium, DeVonta Smith sat at the stall next door, enveloped by the mass.

There’s no doubt Smith heard what Brown said when asked about him.

“Not worried about him at all,” Brown said. “Not worried about him at all. He’s going to bounce back like he always do. A confidence issue, that’s not an issue. He’s going to be just fine. He’s going to be fine. Simple. That ain’t even a thought.”

It was a rough game for Smith that featured two uncharacteristic drops. Smith is known for making acrobatic catches with his incredible body control in traffic or toe-tapping on the sideline.

But in Sunday’s 20-14 loss to the Jets, Smith dropped two routine passes that hit him right in the hands. The second huge drop came in the second half and it would have been a huge play in the game.

That drop came on the opening drive of the second half when the Eagles had a chance to extend their 14-9 lead and put the game away. On the play before, Jalen Hurts hit Olamide Zaccheaus for a 15-yard gain but an illegal shift call set up a 1st-and-15. That’s when Hurts hit Smith in stride and he just dropped it. A few plays later, the Eagles were forced to punt.

So what happened on the drops? Did Smith take his eyes off the ball?

“Nah, I just f— dropped them,” Smith said. “Gotta be better.”

What can he learn from this loss?

“Ain’t nothing to learn,” he said. “Catch the damn ball.”

Like Hurts in his postgame presser, Smith took accountability for his mistakes and said to put this one on him. Of course, the most glaring reason the Eagles lost on Sunday wasn’t the Smith drops, it was the four times they turned the football over, including the interception late in the fourth quarter.

But those Smith drops certainly didn’t help.

Smith came into Sunday with 23 catches on the season without a drop in five games. On Sunday, he was targeted a team-high 11 times but had just 5 catches for 44 yards.

The last target Smith got on Sunday came on 4th-and-8 from the Eagles’ 27-yard line with 1:24 left. Hurts chucked the ball deep into double coverage and Smith couldn’t come up with a catch. Smith said he felt like he got grabbed on the play but there wasn’t a flag.

“It’s tough to make a catch when you’re falling back,” Smith said. “The guy was grabbing me.”

The Eagles’ defense held the Jets to 244 yards and the final 8 points of the game came when they had to let the Jets score on as short field. Sean Desai’s unit, despite a bunch of injuries, held up its end of the bargain on Sunday.

The offense didn’t.

Sure, that’s a good Jets defense but the Eagles have too much firepower — even after losing Lane Johnson — to score just 14 points.

The offensive issues weren’t all on Smith. No one would claim they were. The quarterback threw a costly pick, the running back coughed up the rock, the backup right tackle was a turnstile.

But Smith didn’t want to hear anything about the offense looking off on Sunday.

“Nah, I just dropped the damn ball,” he said. “I need to catch the ball.”

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