He had a rough first year...... But we can't give up on him..... He was a project when we drafted him. Nothing has changed......
Weaknesses Lacks natural, soft hands. Will double catch and corral throws into body. Tries to catch, turn and run before securing the throw. Shows a lack of patience in his routes. Game too heavily reliant upon speed. Must learn to be effective when deep ball is restricted by defense. Thin hips and frame. Play strength is below average. Can be frustrated by physical corners. Gets jostled and distracted when bodied hard down the field. Desire lacking as run blocker. Often taken off field and replaced when Buckeyes wanted to run out of "11" personnel.
Devin is a speed merchant. If you look at most of Devin's college catches, the ball is thrown squarely in front of him and he runs under it. Fitz's weak arm opposite is a schematical mismatch for Devin's skillset. Fitz's arm is weaker than JT Barrett's (whose arm isn't really weak but nothing special), and not close to Cardale Jones'. With the right QB, Devin can be a game breaker.
No disagreement. Hence the post I made about needing a TE that can run the seam routes to draw safties...
I said that. At the NFL level body catching is not good. But anyone can be taught to catch thumbs together....Keyshawn was the same type of catcher coming out of college, and Parcells fixed it. go back and look at some of his highlights like the top of tje shoes catch... And Smiths first pro TD? Was 3 feet over his head and away. That you cant teach.
As to that post...frame one. He is overthrown, amd fighting for the ball Frame two 4 inches off the ground between two defenders. Frame 3 underthrown...but..it does show his flaw. Pinkies together...not thumbs. Thats coaching. A fast guy can get thru HS, and even Div1 (if the coaches arent good) without it being addressed. But footballs are caught with the THUMBS together... That needs fixed.
Frame 2 is the fumble on the kick return, not a throw. He never should have taken that ball out of the end zone. _
I fear he might be a bust im going to give him 3 years but I didnt like the pick to begin with. I honestly thought DGB would have been a perfect fit here. Give him all the time in the world to develop behind Marshall and Decker and in a couple years he could turn into a Martavis Bryant type , the kid is special and came on at the end of last year. Smith was already brittle and then the ankle foot and now acl have been damaged. I hope im wrong Devin prove me wrong I really dont want to be right about this but this smells like drafting Stephen Hill over Alson Jeffery. Jets its if u dont start fucking up I swear...
I loved DGB before he got into all the trouble in school. After that, there's just no way he was worth the risk.
Your right on.Smith was a miss by Mc and the jets drafted another receiver based on speed cause Smith did not see that many balls come his way in that OS offense.His biggest failure was what you said,being pushed around all over the place on special teams,he`s weak and needs to bulk up for the nfl.His ball skills are also ave to below ave,needs to go get the ball instead of waiting to catch with his body.Can`t say much of his return game either since he fumbled the only return he tried.Again not worth the 37th pick overall when you look at the receivers that came after him exiggs from vikings who was drafted 146th overall.The jets got little as a receiver and bad little as a special team player.
It's ridiculous to call him a miss at this point. He may very well turn out to have be a miss, but that can't be determined for another year or two. Smith just wasn't drafted because he was fast. That was part of it, as the Jets needed a receiver who could get deep and help open up the underneath routes and the rushing attack. It's also ridiculous to say that Smith has poor ball skills. He is said to have rare topnotch skills for tracking the ball and making adjustments to the ball. His hands are not a problem. The Jets also thought he had the talent to learn the other routes and become a complete WR. Smith can't help it if OSU didn't use him for anything but deep routes. Urban Meyer is known for not developing well-rounded players. Players who have a special talent in one area get used almost solely for that one thing.
Maybe he can track and adjust to the ball but you also have to catch it.How many balls did he catch at OS for mac to make him the 37th pick overall??Thats what i`m saying.Every other catch in college was a td but who did OS play,running pass Cbs and safeties in college is one thing doing against pro players is a little harder.Again i didm`t like the pick especially on the amount of balls that got thrown his way.You look at the receivers that were drafted after him and you can see that Smith was over draft by the jets.And thats just the receivers.A lot of good football players were available at 37.Smith needs to bulk up,learn routes,learn how to tackle,ball security...etc coming off a serious injury.I wish the kid the best but he has a hard uphill to climb in short time.
That's fair. I can understand not liking the pick, thinking that there were better players at that spot, and even that he was over drafted. Personally, Smith wasn't even on my list of players I'd like to see the Jets add, but then I'm not a professional and don't spend as much time analyzing and scrutinizing the prospects as the pros do. I preferred Tyler Lockett because of his STs ability and he's just as fast. The only thing I didn't like about him was his height. I also liked Eric Kendricks, Maxx Williams, and Benardrick McKinney. If DGB didn't have all the character issues, he's the guy I would have loved to see the Jets add at WR, but with those issues, I wouldn't have touched him. Just out of curiosity, who were the receivers or players you wanted and would have taken over Smith in the 2nd round? I agree that he has a lot of work to do, and he's going to have to bust his butt to catch up. Missing OTAs and TC was huge. Missing them again this year with his injury is even bigger. For his sake and ours, I hope he's smart and working hard in other ways, studying film, mentally going through the route tree, working to build strength in his upper body, and whatever kind of training and conditioning work he might be able to do. There's no way that Mac could have known that would have happened with Smith, so I can't fault him for that. I'm willing to give the kid a couple of years to develop. Hopefully, he will. If not, one might fault Mac, but we may never know if Smith would have developed into a good receiver if he hadn't gotten injured and missed all that time last preseason.
Spoke to a die hard Buckeye fan today and he was sayin that Smith is going to be a stud for us... He was saying he is way better than Michael Thomas although different styles. I still have a bit of hope after that covo lol
It seems pretty obvious to me that Devin Smith was drafted with Geno penceled in as the starter. The idea was to get a deep threat that wouldn't need to fight for the ball and could simply run under it and beat the secondary with speed over the top. When Fitz became the quarterback that changed. Look at some of the deep balls he completed. I'm thinking of the bomb to Brandon Marshall vs. Miami. Fitzpatrick is going to put the ball in the area, with a lot of air under it and he needs his receiver to make a play. He doesn't have the arm to throw receivers open on deep routes, whereas Geno hasn't displayed the accuracy but definitely has a cannon. The injury is going to hurt him big time to the point where it's going to even be tough to judge his development next year as he probably won't be ready til mid season if that. We might be looking at year 3 for the make or break year for him, whereas most receivers need to show something in year 2. If he isn't effective next year it's tough to really blame him. Two freak injuries really hurt that draft pick.
