Eagles DeVonta Smith bounces back in 37-17 win against. Bengal

His last name may be Battle, but DeVonta Smith won this one, beating the Bengals defensive back for a key touchdown in the Eagles’ 37-17 romp against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday.

Locked in man coverage, Jordan Battle was no match for the Eagles’ stellar receiver, who made a 45-yard catch in the end zone to give the Eagles a 24-17 lead less than two minutes after the Bengals tied the game at 17. The score came with 2:43 to play in the third quarter and the Eagles never gave the lead back. The win moved them to 5-2 with a home game scheduled for Sunday against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

“We knew we were going to get the one-on-one coverage and Jalen (Hurts) trusts me to go there when it’s one-on-one to win a 50-50 ball,” Smith said.

It was a solid rebounding game for him after last week’s game against the Giants, where his run blocking was excellent, but his pass catching was not. He had just one catch in the 28-3 win over New York, a failed bubble screen that lost two yards.

“I just do my job, whether I achieve a lot of goals or a few goals, I just go out there and try to do my best to make the most of my opportunities,” he said. “Just trust my training. I go there every day and I feel like I work really hard on my craft so that when the opportunity arises, I’m just ready. Sometimes things don’t work out, but when they do, you have to be ready for it.”

His advantage over Battle? “I can see the ball and (he) can’t,” said Smith, who finished his day with six catches for a team-high 85 yards and the game-changing TD.

“Great catch,” said AJ Brown, who added five catches for 84 yards. “I prayed he held on because of the way he fell.”

Smith has experienced adversity before when it comes to making plays in the passing game. In the 2022 season opener in Detroit, he was targeted four times but did not catch a catch. The following week, in a 24–7 win over the Minnesota Vikings, he had seven catches for 80 yards.

“Smitty’s not worried about that,” Brown said. “He comes to work and is making a play when his number is called. Of course, he wanted more than negative (2) yards last week. So when he got the chance, he made the most of it. That is what is expected.”

Smith’s. atch was his second touchdown catch for 45 yards this season and the team’s 11th play of at least 40 yards this season, which leads the NFL and is already two more than last season.

“That’s the way the game goes,” head coach Nick Sirianni said last week of Smith’s offensive performance, or lack thereof. “That’s why you can’t overreact when things happen and be proud of him and the things he stands for and the way he puts his head down and works and fine-tunes everything else.

Perhaps the irony is that Smith’s first reception resulted in a loss of two yards. However, Jalen Hurts kept throwing at him.

Smith came up big on a pair of third-down throws. He made a 15-yard catch on third-and-5 to keep a drive alive that led to a touchdown and a 17–10 Eagles lead in the third. Smith also had a nine-yard grab on third-and-7 on another drive that kept the drive alive and pushed the lead to 34-17.

“He made some big plays all over the field and on third downs he came up big,” Hurts said. “I think this was a great achievement for him and a great achievement for our team.”

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