Football is a game of inches, and sometimes a single play can dictate the outcome of the entire game.
That’s how Philadelphia Eagles star wide receiver DeVonta Smith feels about his team’s Super Bowl LVII loss to Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. When asked about his biggest regret from that iconic game, Smith didn’t hesitate to give an answer.
“The last catch I had,” Smith told Fox News Digital.
Late in the fourth quarter, the Eagles had squandered a 10-point halftime lead and were trailing 35-27. But during a drive orchestrated by Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, the Eagles arrived at the Chiefs’ 47-yard line with 5:46 left in the game.
Hurts connected on a pass down the left sideline to Smith after the Chiefs busted coverage. Though Smith caught the ball, he lost his footing and fell out of bounds. Hurts scored on the next play and ensuing two-point conversion, but the stopped clock had done its damage, leaving Mahomes and the Chiefs’ offense plenty of time to score and retake the lead.
And that’s exactly what happened. Smith feels the game would have been different he had scored on his catch.
“If I went ahead and scored, we would’ve had more time when we had the ball on the last possession to go do some things that we needed to do,” he said.
But Smith knows that getting to the Super Bowl means nothing for the upcoming season.
“Every year’s different. We can’t sit up here and bank on what we did,” he said. “It’s a new year, new team. No team is ever the same the following year, so we have to put together things the right way and try to get back to where we was and finish it the right way.
“We have to build on what we did, continue to do things the right way. We do things how we did last year, and do it even better, I think we’ll get to where we want to be.”
[Fox News]
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