THE PHILADELPHIA EAGLES' offense stepped onto the field in Week 2 down three on the road against the Tennessee Titans with 1:56 remaining. It was the kind of moment, receiver DeVonta Smith said immediately following the game, that "you live for."
Quarterback Jalen Hurts went to Smith four times on the drive. Four times Smith delivered, including on a sideline throw in which Smith stood on his toes and fully extended his arms to snag the ball at a 45-degree angle on his way to the ground. Tap-tap. First down.
Then came the money play: third-and-6 from the Titans' 22. Hurts zipped one down the left side for Smith, who leaped and stretched high to catch the ball, pivoted away from an oncoming defender in midair, somehow, and managed to drag his feet in bounds as a pair of Titans players crashed on top of him -- a picturesque 19-yard completion that set the stage for Darius Cooper's game-winning touchdown.
"I take a lot of pride in it," Smith said of being the go-to guy in key moments. There was a short pause.
"I feel like it was time," he continued, fresh off a 10-catch, 117-yard performance. "It was time for me to go out there and show what I can do, that I can be that guy. I had the opportunity and I went out there and did it."
The subtext here is that the 27-year-old Smith and the Eagles are operating in the post-A.J. Brown world after Brown was traded to the New England Patriots in the offseason. Smith and Brown shined during their four years together, becoming the first Eagles duo to each post 1,000-plus receiving yards in a single season in 2022, then they did it again in '23 and '25. The franchise's all-time postseason receiving yards leader, Smith has hardly been stuck in the shadows.
But he has long been the 1B to Brown's 1A. Working alongside another alpha receiver in a run-centric system, the volume and production have always been just a tick below superstar status. He has never been an All-Pro or selected to a Pro Bowl. Now in Year 6, the 2020 Heisman Trophy winner finds himself at the center of a revamped passing offense under new coordinator Sean Mannion, backed by an organization that has expressed full confidence both publicly and behind the scenes that Smith is headed to another stratosphere.
After all, from his game-winning catch in the College Football Playoff National Championship game as a freshman at Alabama in 2017 to hauling in "The Dagger" against the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX, he has met just about every big moment he has faced.
Despite his stoic public demeanor and team-first approach, Smith has always seen himself as a true No. 1, Eagles receivers coach Aaron Moorehead said, and now has the opportunity to show the rest of the world why.
"He's not selfish, but he's fiery and feisty," his high school receivers coach Christopher Gordon said. "He's always been that guy, to where it's 'Give me the ball.' You know, 'I'm gonna make a play.'"
CRIMSON TIDE AND Eagles fans owe a debt of gratitude to Izarius Grady, better known as "Pip," Smith's best friend dating back to when they were in grade school.
They played together on the basketball team at Amite (Louisiana) High Magnet School. The wiry 6-foot Smith was so good at the sport, Grady said, that he was reaching upward of 40 points a game in middle school while barely shooting 3s. "Layups, floaters, crossing people up, it was just so easy for him," Grady said. "I didn't see him going to the NFL. I always thought NBA, and he could tell you that, too." They were facing Ville Platte in the second round of the playoffs their senior year. Down two, the coaches designed a play to go to Smith but he was double-teamed at half court. Smith opted to pass the ball to Grady, who missed the shot, and Amite got knocked out of the postseason.
"I wasn't even expecting to shoot the ball," Grady said. "I told him, I don't even know why he tried to pass it. I would have shot it with the double-team if I was him because he was made for those moments."
Not long after he was selected by the Eagles 10th overall in the 2021 draft, Smith said that experience reinforced he is built for the brightest of stages and would "never shy away from taking the big shot again."
The idea of going to Smith for a big play is nothing new. Going back to the middle school recess yard, if your side needed something to happen, "Just throw him the ball, he gonna make it," Grady said.
"He was always ahead of his peers. He was always just ahead because he always doing like some extra work and playing with older guys. Like, he could be sixth, seventh grade, but he's playing with eighth graders and ninth graders and just fitting in always."
Athletically, sure, but not always when it came to size.
Gordon, Smith's receivers coach at Amite, remembers his first impression as Smith took the field for fall camp his freshman season.
"Little skinny kid. Really, really long feet. Body looks very awkward," he said. "They call him 'Skinny Batman' now, imagine what it was like as a freshman, right?"
What perplexed Gordon further was that Smith put himself at the front of the line for varsity drills. He had the thought: Man, nobody's going to move him out of the way? And since none of the upper classmen did, practice began. Once he started moving, the talent was evident and Smith quickly cemented his spot as the first-man up.
Smith mastered things so quickly, it forced Gordon to try out new techniques and drills to challenge him.
"It was funny because coaching a kid and becoming a fan of a kid is kind of a weird space," Gordon said. "Like I found myself being a fanboy at times just because of how he would do the things that he would do."
Still, Smith weighed 120 pounds as a freshman in high school. Determined to get bigger and stronger, he set an alarm on his watch and anytime it went off, no matter where he was, he would drop down and do pushups.
Zephaniah Powell, the school's head football coach and dean of discipline, remembers walking the halls during a class change and seeing Smith through a sea of bodies dropping to the ground.
"So I get there and he gets up off the ground. I say, 'DeVonta, what are you doing?' He said, 'Well, you know, Coach, I'm a little slighter of build, so I know I have to get bigger. So every time I see my reflection, no matter if it's in a window or water puddle or whatever, I drop down to do pushups,'" Powell said. "I say, 'You do this every day, all day? He says 'Yes sir, and plus I'm in the weight room as well.'"
Smith's "undeniable will," as Powell put it, is what set him apart in the minds of those who watched his climb. His mindset was molded in part by his mother, Christina Smith-Sylve, a social worker in southeastern Louisiana. Smith would sometimes accompany his mom as she handled family welfare cases.
"The uncomfortable things she had to do that she probably wasn't comfortable doing and the sacrifices she made put life into a different perspective," Smith said.
That will showed up in the lead-up to Amite's state championship game against Lutcher High School his senior year. A foot injury left Smith sidelined from practice the entire week. "I could barely walk," he said. The injury -- reportedly a dislocated toe -- sent him to the emergency room the night before the game, in pain but desperate to play in a game he and his teammates had been dreaming about since little league.
Smith not only played but was named the game's most outstanding player after catching 8 passes for 111 yards, returning a kickoff for a touchdown and coming up with an interception on defense. Amite lost in heartbreaking fashion, 40-36, in a game played at the Caesars Superdome. One of the lasting images from that game is of Smith sitting on the field after that loss with tears streaming down his face.
It wasn't lost on anyone who knows his story that his brightest moment to date as a pro -- his 46-yard touchdown in Super Bowl LIX against the Chiefs that put that game on ice during the '24 season -- came in that same stadium, about an hour away from his hometown.
SMITH WAS HIGHLY recruited coming out of high school, including by in-state LSU, which even had the same team colors as Amite. Smith, though, ultimately felt the most comfortable at Alabama.
But it took some time for Alabama to get comfortable with him.
"It wasn't as easy as everybody thought. [Coach Nick Saban] didn't offer me at first because of the size thing," Smith said during a 2021 podcast appearance with Shannon Sharpe. "It was like, we need you to gain some weight before we offer you."
No matter what he ate or how many pushups he did, Smith weighed around 145 pounds as a senior.
Smith credits his mentor, Vincent Sanders, for continuing to drive him to the Tide's prospect camp despite their initial hesitancy -- a persistence that eventually paid off, as Saban realized Smith continually got the best of defensive backs he faced, regardless of his size, and ultimately offered him a scholarship.
Smith said he was "in his feelings" at first about the school's initial reluctance but put that aside and focused on the opportunity.
Smith finished his college career as a two-time national champion, the SEC's leader in receiving yards and touchdowns, and the first receiver to win the Heisman Trophy since Desmond Howard in 1991.
Saban ended up being one of Smith's strongest advocates in the lead-up to the 2021 draft.
"To look at him and say he only weighs 170 pounds as a reason not to pick him, I would say to them: 'The ball weighs 13 ounces; how big do you have to be to carry it?'" Saban said during an appearance on "The Rich Eisen Show."
Coach Gordon said there are times when Smith absorbs a big hit during an NFL game where he'll find himself standing right in front of the television, imploring him to "Get up, son."
"And he pops right up. 'You're all right,'" he'd say.
"It's amazing to see him go after goal after goal. It gives so much to the people of this community -- and ... anyone that is always looked at as the underdog."
Through two Eagles games this season, Smith ranked sixth in targets (19), seventh in receptions (13) and 13th in yards (170) among all pass catchers. He is on pace for over 1,400 receiving yards, which would be a career high by a significant margin and would likely lead to his first Pro Bowl nod.
A COUPLE OF years ago, Brown was speaking with reporters in the locker room after practice and was pushing back on the notion that he was a diva receiver.
"Honestly, man, I don't even ask for the ball in the game. ... Smitty is the more vocal one. Y'all don't even see that," Brown said with a smile, with Smith in earshot a locker over.
People who know Smith say his desire to get the ball and make a meaningful impact on the game burns as hotly as anyone's. It's just stored behind a world-class poker face and don't-say-more-than-you-have-to approach with media.
Winning has always been Smith's first priority. He and Brown were tight during their four years together as they rearranged the Eagles record books and helped the team to a pair of Super Bowl appearances.
Sharing the spotlight with Brown, and guys such as Jaylen Waddle, Jerry Jeudy and Calvin Ridley before him at Alabama, seemed to help shape his mindset.
When asked in January about that seemingly pivotal moment on the high school basketball court, when he passed up the last shot and vowed not to shy away from the big moment again, it was interesting to hear how Smith's response seemed to have evolved from the time he was drafted.
"Yeah, it should have been me. But it's tough when you're getting doubled at half court. You have six seconds, you're not going to take a half-court shot," he said.
"For me, I knew I wanted to take the last shot, everyone wanted me to take the last shot. But sometimes it don't work like that. Sometimes you have to give up things to get what you want."