DeVonta Smith has yet to receive any individual recognition in the NFL, but he does have that Super Bowl ring now. And he truly earned it, hauling in a 46-yard TD pass that put his Philadelphia Eagles up 34-0—a lead from which they never looked back. Smith finished with four receptions for a team-leading 69 yards and that TD.
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It was the capper to another solid season in which Smith once again performed just below a Pro Bowl level. He finished with 68 receptions for 833 yards and a career-high eight TDs in just 13 games. He also signed a three-year, $75 million deal last April, securing his long-term future. Smith is earning $25 million a year despite not even being his team’s WR1. That’s the value that has been placed on the WR position today.
And, as the former Heisman winner explained recently on Carmelo Anthony’s 7PM in Brooklyn podcast, wide receivers deserve every penny—because playing the position is a lot harder than it looks. Smith emphasized that it’s not just physically demanding, but even more so mentally. No position relies more on the other 10 players on the field than wide receiver, and the lack of control over one’s own performance can be tough to deal with.
“Receiver, I don’t think people really understand how hard it is to be a receiver. So much has to go right for you to get the ball. You gotta go with the snap, O-line gotta block, quarterback gotta make the right read, running back gotta pick up blocks,” Smith explained, his tone completely serious.
“Like, we’re the last resort. For us to even get a chance, so much other stuff gotta go right… Just know when the ball do come you gotta make the play. You never know when it’s gonna come again.”
So much has to go right for a receiver to get the ball. Thus, when they don’t get it after beating their man, it’s easy to understand their frustration. This is where the concept of the receiver diva stems from. With limited opportunities to make an impact, being overlooked can be especially frustrating.
“What we do is really depending on a lot of other people. We can go out there, cook somebody, and be wide open, but if the protection don’t hold up, ain’t nobody gonna see that. So it’s like, we work so hard at what we do, but our job depends on other people doing their job,” Smith continued.
As with anything, different receivers deal with that in different ways. While Devonta Smith says that he likes to listen to gospel music to get himself back in the right mindset, his teammate, A.J. Brown, is a little bit more unorthodox.
“It’s tough man, but everybody deals with it differently. A.J., he reads a book. (Laughs) I’ma say this: he was reading that book the whole year. I don’t know why they just picked it up right then, but the whole year he’s had the book on the sidelines. That’s his way. For me, at halftime, I go in and listen to gospel when it’s not going right, try to get myself locked in.”
DeVonta Smith broke down the plight of the receiver well. However, considering they earn more on average than any position besides quarterbacks and pass rushers, we won’t shed too many tears for them.
Wideout Ja’Marr Chase just signed a deal for over $40 million a year with the Cincinnati Bengals, making him the highest-paid non-QB ever. One would think that with a salary like that, the job is pretty difficult.
