What You Need to Know:

• Smith landed in an offense that didn’t see anyone reach 80 targets in 2020. Greg Ward led the team with just a 13.2% share. Zach Ertz and Travis Fulgham ranked 2nd and 3rd on that team in targets. Opportunity is ripe for the picking.
• After trading down from 6 to 12 ahead of the draft, the Eagles moved back up to 10 to secure Smith.
• The Slim Reaper set SEC records in 2020 with 1,856 receiving yards and 23 TD catches, each of which rank among the top 6 all-time in the NCAA.
• Smith posted 8 games of 2+ TD catches and cracked 200 receiving yards 3 times as a senior.
• Smith also led the 2019 Crimson Tide in receiving yards (1,256) and TDs (14), ahead of Jaylen Waddle, Jerry Jeudy and Henry Ruggs.
• Smith spent his first 2 Alabama seasons as a teammate of Jalen Hurts. That said, they saw minimal game time together. Smith caught just 8 passes in 2017, Hurts’ final season as the Tide starter -- then broke out as a sophomore with Tua Tagovailoa behind center.
• Since the league expanded to 32 teams in 2002, we have seen 72 WRs drafted in Round 1. The rookie-year median for that group is 5.31 targets per game (a 16-game pace of 85). Of those 72 WRs, 23 have gone inside the top 10. That group’s median sits at 7.19 targets per game (16-game pace: 115). Those 115 targets would have tied for 20th among wideouts last season.

Draft Sharks Bottom Line:

We could dig deeper into the numbers on Smith, but that seems unnecessary at this point. (You can check out his full Prospect Scouting Report here.) The only real question on him is whether Smith can buck history and succeed in the NFL at a size that we just haven’t seen work. The Eagles clearly believe he can, as they jumped ahead of the Giants to make sure they got him. That lands Smith on a team that saw no player reach 80 targets last season. The coaching staff is new. The QB has just 3 full NFL starts behind him. And we’ll have to wait to see exactly how much time Smith spends at different WR spots. But early reports point to Nick Sirianni moving his WRs around quite a bit, and we saw Smith do quite well in just such a malleable role last year. As long as you don’t have to reach too early, Smith carries immediate fantasy intrigue.

His FFPC best-ball ADP of WR33 as of this writing teeters on the edge of too early, though -- 2 spots behind Odell Beckham Jr. and 9 ahead of Brandin Cooks.