Birds’ Diva Receivers More Into the Names on the Back Than the Logos on the Sleeves

The Philadelphia Eagles have one of the most impressive wide-out tandems on the planet in A.J. Brown and Devonta Smith but both happen to be strangely unimpressed with winning a Super Bowl.  I guess when you’re used to winning, the stimulus center in your frontal lobes might not carry certain sensory information with the same fervor and alacrity through your brain as it normally would.  Either that or you just get more juice by beating your man straight up.

First it was A.J. Brown taking to Instagram just three days after the Birds put the “Belt to A#s and spanked the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22 last month.

“After a few days, I’ve had time to reflect on being a champion,” Brown wrote. “I tried to feel how everyone made it seem to be a champion and unfortunately it was short lived.. two days to be exact lol.  I’ve never been a champion at the highest level before but I thought my hard work would be justified by winning it all.  It wasn’t. My thrill for this game comes when i dominate. It’s the Hunt that does it for me. It’s when the Db drops his head and surrenders because he can’t F with me.”

Then the other day on the 7PM In Brooklyn podcast the other half of the dynamic duo, Devonta Smith, described blowing the doors off the Chiefs and the coronation that ensued as “Kinda, like, eh.”

Eh? Seriously? Eh?  It must be nice to be so good at something that you actually get bored with the success that derives from your own generational talent.  Smith was excited about one aspect of the game though: “I’m gonna be real with you,. For me, you know, I’ve played at the biggest game on every stage. I think for me, the Super Bowl, it felt like that just because I was at home. It was just the emotion of me being home.”  Smith caught a 46 yard touchdown pass from Jalen Hurts late in the third quarter to put Philly up 34-0 in the drubbing of the two-time defending Super Bowl Champions.  

The two star wideouts have both played in two Super Bowls in the last three years, winning the most recent one, and both have excelled in the two title games combining for 20 receptions, 308 yards, three touchdowns and two Super Bowl rings.  Not too shabby.  For Brown it was his first championship in college or the pros but for Smitty it was his third since stepping foot on Tuscaloosa soil back in 2017 as a freshman for legendary head coach Nick Saban.

(Cue D.J. Khaled). All he does is win, everywhere he goes.  Smith won two national championships at Alabama and played for a third.  He caught the game-winning and national championship winning touchdown, a 41-yard strike from backup quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who replaced Smith’s current quarterback Jalen Hurts at half time of the title game, to give ‘Bama a 26-23 overtime victory over Georgia his freshman year putting college football on notice for what was about to come.  

The Slim Reaper, as he is affectionately called by his Eagle teammates certainly isn’t at a loss for confidence.  On the same podcast Smith proclaimed that he’s the best receiver in college football history.

“I’ll say yeah,” Smith said. “But then again, the receiver in me that kind of  watched other receivers that didn’t get the opportunities I had like you had Julio Jones in a run-first offense and was the only option in the pass game doing the things he did. You had Cooper Kupp who just like cooking everybody…I know I was cooking, but they was cooking too. You have to have respect for those guys. You know it made me kind of want to do what I did.”

All he did at Alabama was catch 46 touchdowns for 3,961 yards in 54 games while averaging just under 17 yards per reception.  He played all four years for the Tide and finished with 234 catches, a whopping 117 of them came in his senior season, when he racked up 1,856 yards and 23 of his 46 collegiate touchdowns, earning him the Heisman Trophy in 2020.

In the history of college football only three other wide receivers have won the Heisman: Notre Dame’s Tim Brown did it in 1987, Michigan’s Desmond Howard won his four years later in 1991 and two-way wide receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter won the most recent one at Colorado this past season.

Smith knows all about the history and the Heisman and still believes in where he stands in the annals of college football lore and to be honest, he’s right and it isn’t even that close.

“Out of those four, I’m No. 1,” Smith said with all the humility and honesty that comes from the prototypical NFL Diva-Receivah.  Someone might want to remind him that his team is No. 1 too.

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