A.J. Brown was the alpha. Saquon Barkley was the cover. Jalen Hurts was the MVP. But across every minute of meaningful Eagles football since 2021, DeVonta Smith has been the player making the catches that move the chains, win the down, and decide the game.
Now that Smith is the official WR1 of the 2026 Eagles, here's the five-catch reel that earned him the job. Ranked.
5. The 41-Yard Backflip vs. Dallas (2024)
Jalen Hurts fired down the field, Smith adjusted to the ball, leapt for the catch between two Cowboys defenders, and finished the play by completing a literal backflip on his way to the ground. The reception led directly to a tush-push touchdown. The play broke social media for a week.
This is the catch that crystallized what Eagles fans had been telling the rest of the league for three years: Smith's body control is genuinely elite. Defensive backs spend years training for late-route adjustments. Smith just does them.
4. The Acrobatic 1,000-Yard Catch vs. Commanders (2023)
Hurts threw, Smith stretched out horizontally, secured the ball with both hands while extending across the field, and crossed the 1,000-yard threshold for the second straight season as he came down. The visual was a poster catch. The milestone made it more.
The Eagles won 24-8 that day. Smith finished with eight catches for 169 yards and a touchdown. That game was the answer to a question that had been growing in the fan base: would Smith get fed enough to put up alpha numbers? Yes. When they fed him, he hit alpha numbers.
3. The One-Handed Back-of-the-End-Zone TD vs. Jaguars (2024)
Fourth quarter. Tight coverage. Smith ran a fade to the back of the end zone. Hurts put the ball where only Smith could get to it. Smith stretched out, one-handed it, kept his feet inbounds. Catch of the Year nominee. Should have won it.
What makes this one special isn't just the catch itself. It's the situation. Tight game, red zone, defender draped on him, ball thrown to a one-square-foot window. Smith made it look easy. That's what the great ones do.
2. The 79-Yard Touchdown vs. Vikings (2023)
Career-best 183-yard day, and the centerpiece of it was a 79-yard catch-and-run touchdown where Smith blew the top off the Vikings defense, caught a Hurts deep ball in stride, and outran the entire secondary to the end zone.
This is the catch that quieted the narrative that Smith couldn't be a downfield threat. 79 yards to the house. The fastest catch-and-score of his career to that point. That nine-catch, 183-yard game is still his career-high and it happened against a top-five defense.
1. The Dagger (Super Bowl LIX, vs. Chiefs)
27-0 Eagles, late third quarter. Chiefs just turned the ball over on downs. Hurts called the play himself. Smith blew past coverage, caught the 46-yard touchdown pass to make it 34-0, and effectively ended any chance of a Chiefs comeback. The play has its own name now: "The Dagger."
You can rank Smith's career catches a hundred different ways and the Dagger is always number one. It's a Super Bowl. It's the play that put the game on ice. Hurts has since revealed that he asked Sirianni for that specific call. The two of them knew. Smith knew. Everybody knew.
When DeVonta Smith was asked recently to name his top three career catches, he called the Dagger the best one, and joked that the other two were both against the Washington Commanders. The man knows his receipts.
What this list says
Five different opponents. Three different seasons. Two division opponents, two playoff teams, one Super Bowl champion getting put away. The thing every catch has in common: Smith made the play that was either the difference in the game or the cleanest indicator that the offense had a true alpha at receiver, even when the headlines were going to somebody else.
That's the player the 2026 Eagles offense is now built around. The Dagger isn't the end of the story. It's the highlight reel that explains why the rest of it is going to keep happening.
