Inside the Eagles' Fix For Struggling Rookie WR

Rookie Ainias Smith has struggled early in his NFL career and the hope is that attention to detail and fundamentals turn the Texas A&M product around.

Eagles WR Ainias Smith (No. 82) / John McMullen/Eagles on SI

PHILADELPHIA - "Catch the football" is a familiar refrain for any frustrated fan who sees one of their favorite receivers drop an easy one.

It's also a pet peeve of Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni, a former WR himself during his playing days at Mount Union.

It hasn’t been the best start for Eagles’ rookie receiver Ainias Smith.

The 152nd overall pick in April’s draft, Smith was a first-team All-SEC player in college at Texas A&M with playmaking skills as a receiver, running back, and returner. Some size deficiencies (5-foot-9 and 176), a somewhat pedestrian 40 time of 4.56, and a stress fracture in his left shin uncovered at the NFL combine contributed to Smith’s Day 3 status.

The Eagles, though, thought they may have gotten a diamond in the rough when it came to a player with the ball in his hands with Smith.

When voluntary OTAs started Smith was still waiting to be medically cleared and when that bar was cleared the fifth-round pick was so juiced that he seemed to be pressing a bit and the drops started to show up as both a receiver and punt returner.

Smith was fighting the football and the hope was when the nerves began to settle down, the Missouri City, Texas native would start showing off his playmaking skills again.

The drops though have continued in training camp and many observers are starting to believe Smith has fallen from virtual lock for the 53-man roster to a bubble player who will need to step things up with his preseason reps.

Eagles on SI asked Sirianni how he handles a young player who may have lost some confidence in himself like Smith and the Eagles head coach didn't disappoint with a passionate response.

“When you go out to play any practice, any game, you always want to be detailed in everything that you do,” Sirianni said. “That starts with knowing what to do, your assignment. Being in the right spot, getting to the right check, getting to the right location, doing the right thing.

“Then it comes down to the detail of the fundamental. You know, the tackling, the catching, the combo blocks, the blocking. All those different things are in place.

“So, what we're looking for every day is-- so many plays go wrong because something goes wrong with the detail.”

The last thing you want to do as a coach is prey on a failure, according to Sirianni.

“What we're doing when we go in there and correct a fundamental, it's always about, ‘Hey, you dropped this pass. Why?’ ‘You didn't get off this block. Why?’” Sirianni explained. “Because the worst coaching point in the world -- and I hate this coaching point, and I hate hearing this -- is ‘catch the ball.’ 

“Well, I tried to. ‘Get off the block.’ I tried to.”

For Sirianni is about focusing in on the fundamental that fueled  the mistake. 

“How [do you correct the mistake]? That's what's talked about in the meeting room. That's what's fixed in the meeting room,” he said. “You mentioned Ainias. ‘Hey, you dropped this ball that was low. Were your hands a little bit apart? Did you try to turn up the field? Let me show you [the film]. Here's the proper fundamental. 

“... And now we have unbelievable players on our team and so much tape at our disposal because now we can go, ‘Okay, Ainias, watch [WR] A.J. [Brown], how his pinkies are together when the ball is below his waist,’ ‘Watch A.J. when he goes to the ground and instead of going to the ground and letting the ball pop out, he gets to his back.’

“It's those little details.”

What Sirianni doesn’t want to hear is “catch the football.”

“If I hear one of my coaches say, ‘Catch it,’ I'm upset because it's about how you do it, and that's what we go about in that film room,” the coach said. “That's how we go about correcting things like fundamentals because it's in the fundamentals. It's in the detail that you win games and that you win plays.”

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