PHI · WR
Projected Points (PPR)
This week
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DeVonta Smith enters the year as the fifth receiver listed on Philadelphia's depth chart, a number that undersells his actual standing in the passing game even as it raises questions about how the room is structured. Through four games he has played 86.1% of the offensive snaps, a workload figure that puts him squarely among the regular contributors regardless of where he sits alphabetically on a chart. He has drawn forty-one targets already, turning them into twenty-six receptions for 310 yards and two touchdowns, including three targets inside the red zone. Last season he finished with 113 targets and seventy-seven catches for 1,008 yards across sixteen starts and seventeen games played, a workload that made him a weekly inclusion in most lineups even when the touchdown total stayed light at four. The volume base is the story here: a receiver taking nearly nine in ten snaps and pulling more than forty targets in a month's work is not a complementary piece, he is part of the engine. The quarterback throwing him the ball is Tanner McKee, now the starter after an offseason that reshuffled Philadelphia's quarterback room, and the rookie Makai Lemon has emerged as the nominal top receiver by depth chart listing. Those two facts together define Smith's role this year — he is working with a different arm than the one that built his 2025 numbers, and he is sharing meaningful snaps with a rookie who is being given first crack at the top perimeter job.
The bull case for DeVonta Smith starts with usage that has not gone away. A player seeing 86.1% of the snaps and pulling in forty-one targets across four games is not a decoy; he is a featured part of the game plan regardless of what the depth chart label says. His catch rate sits at 63.4%, and while that trails his 68.1% mark from last season, the raw target volume is still enough to produce 69 PPR points and a 17.3 points-per-game average early in the year, both ahead of his pace from a season ago when he finished with 201.8 points and 11.9 per game. Two touchdowns in four games also outpaces the rate that produced only four scores across the entire prior season. If that scoring rate holds anywhere close to its current level, the touchdown-starved profile from last year disappears.The case against him is just as real. His finish among players at his position sank from twentieth in PPR scoring last season to thirty-second through the early going this year, a decline that happens even with snaps and targets intact. Some of that is answered by a simple fact: Tanner McKee is throwing the passes now, not the quarterback who fed Smith a career-high 113 targets a season ago. A new arm changes timing, changes where throws go under pressure, and changes who the first read is on a given concept. Makai Lemon sits above him on the depth chart listing at wide receiver, and while rookie receivers do not automatically take over target shares, a team that lists him as its top wideout is signaling an intention to feature him more as the season develops. Red-zone looks also remain thin — only three scoring-area targets through four games, extending a pattern from last season when he saw just ten all year despite his overall target volume. A receiver who wins more on route volume than on scripted end-zone looks is more exposed to touchdown variance, and that is exactly the profile Smith has shown in both samples. The honest read is that the role is secure in terms of snaps and raw targets, but the efficiency and scoring are less certain with a new quarterback getting his footing and a rookie receiver drawing an increasing share of the offense's attention. Smith's catch rate dipping alongside his target share holding suggests some early friction in the passing game that either resolves as Tanner McKee settles in, or persists and caps the receiving yardage even as the volume stays respectable. The per-game scoring uptick so far is encouraging, but it rests on a small sample and two touchdowns that may not repeat at that pace across a full season.
Treat DeVonta Smith as a flex-caliber option who can be started with reasonable confidence in favorable matchups, rather than someone to bench outright. The snap share alone — 86.1% of the offense — guarantees him enough opportunity to matter most weeks, and his early scoring pace of 17.3 PPR points per game is tangible evidence the role still has juice even with a new quarterback. Managers should not overreact to the drop in positional finish from twentieth to thirty-second; that gap is as much about touchdown timing and a new starting quarterback finding rhythm as it is about any erosion in role. Watch two things closely before adjusting his standing further. First, track whether Tanner McKee's targets to Smith keep arriving at a rate near forty over four games — if that volume holds, the receiving yards and catches should stabilize even if the catch rate does not fully recover to last season's 68.1%. Second, monitor how many targets Makai Lemon pulls in over the next month; a rookie receiver gaining target share at Smith's expense would be the clearest signal to shade him down toward a bench or matchup-dependent flex. Until that shift shows up in the target logs, he belongs in lineups as a weekly flex with upside tied to red-zone usage.
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DeVonta Smith has been ruled out for Sunday night against Washington.
Oct 30, 4:45 PM ET
Source:USA TODAY