A.J. Brown may be Batman right now, but DeVonta Smith and Quez Watkins hope not to be Eagles sidekicks

Darius Slay thinks A.J. Brown looks like an enlarged Batman.

“I know you all see him with the dark visor. … And he just look like a swole Batman,” the cornerback said. “You can all not tell me he don’t look like a swole Batman.”

Slay, a recently named first-time Eagles captain, didn’t forget fellow starting wide receivers DeVonta Smith and Quez Watkins, though, when offering nicknames for the Eagles’ other Caped Crusaders.

“DeVonta is a skinny Batman. Quez is a fast Batman,” Slay said Thursday. “So we’ve got three Batmans on a team: one swole, one skinny, one fast.”

But can there be three guys who are Batman at the same time?

In popular entertainment, there has. In football, and on one team, it isn’t that simple. While there have been NFL offenses with two No. 1 receivers, pass distribution rarely evens out over the course of a season. Certainly, it’s rare for a trio of receivers to have comparable numbers.

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Case in point: The season opener. Brown was targeted 13 times on 42 routes and caught 10 passes for 155 yards in his Eagles debut. Smith, despite running one more route than Brown, saw the ball come his way only four times and he finished with zero receptions. And Watkins, in 28 routes, was never targeted.

Ultimately, quarterback Jalen Hurts’ allocation of passes didn’t affect the outcome vs. the Lions. The Eagles won, 38-35, and it wasn’t as if he only had eyes for Brown. Tight end Dallas Goedert caught three of four attempts for 60 yards, and four other players were targeted. One game also is hardly enough of a sample to suggest a trend.

“We have 16 more weeks of this. I’m just trying to stay patient,” Watkins said four days later. “Time’s going to come. Everybody has their games. A.J. might go off, or Smitty might go off, or I might go off. It’s just a rotational thing.”

But there likely is to be a transitional period for Smith and Watkins as they become accustomed to sharing the spotlight with Brown. Even last year, when Smith and Watkins were the most-targeted receivers, with 104 and 62, respectively, there were arguments that they didn’t see the ball enough.

The Eagles, though, shifted to a run-based offense that utilized Hurts’ mobility, and Smith, a rookie, and Watkins, a regular for the first time, didn’t exactly have enough clout to make a beef. But both are prideful players capable of getting open. Only a saint could have the patience to run as many routes without a catch.

Smith wasn’t pointing the finger at anyone. He said his routes were “a little sloppy” and that he could have played “a lot better” last Sunday.

“First game, you don’t quite know what to expect with your first opponent because you don’t know if they’re going to run the same thing,” said Smith, who also had a catch and a defensive pass-interference penalty negated by flags on the Eagles.

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It would be a shock if coach Nick Sirianni and offensive coordinator Shane Steichen didn’t draw up an early play for Smith in Monday night’s game against the Vikings. The 2021 top draft pick actually was targeted twice on the Eagles’ opening drive in Detroit — before Brown — and he dropped the first pass.

But Hurts was blitzed often and at times was forced to scramble, and after it was clear that Brown had hot hands, his quarterback kept feeding him. In his three previous seasons with the Titans, Brown saw as many targets in only two games.

Hurts, of course, played a role in the Eagles trading for his best friend. They spend a lot of time together on the field and off and he must avoid any potential outside bitterness about their relationship. But the third-year quarterback spends as much time with Smith and there have been myriad stories about him reaching out to all corners of the locker room.

“I think he’s got a good relationship with everyone,” Goedert said. “It’s just a trust thing. We know that every game everybody can’t have eight targets. A.J. was doing his thing and the ball was going toward him. To have the game he had, I hope he does it again.

“And if they do stuff to take it away, me, Smitty, Quez, Zach [Pascal], Jack [Stoll] — everybody is going to be ready.”

Staying ready can be a challenge, even for the mentally strong. Skill position players often know ahead of time whether they’re going to be featured in a particular game. But matchups can change based upon how an opponent defends or the flow of a game.

A quarterback can have some influence. While there are progression reads on many pass plays, there also are reads that are based upon coverage. Watkins said there were times he was the first or second read against the Lions, but for whatever the reason the ball never came his way.

“Everything’s on tape,” Watkins said. “So no matter if I didn’t get the ball, I can see myself getting open, Jalen sees it, the coaches see it.”

Sirianni, whenever he’s asked about the passing offense, hasn’t been shy about saying that Brown, Smith, and Goedert are atop his pecking order. They have more accomplished track records, of course, but the Eagles also have more invested in the three players.

Watkins, a former sixth-rounder, made a leap before his second season and won the slot receiver spot. He caught 43 passes for 647 yards a year ago and averaged 15.1 yards a catch, which was 13th best in the NFL.

At the start of last offseason, Sirianni would mention Watkins whenever he was questioned about upgrading the outside receiver spot opposite Smith. And then general manager Howie Roseman dealt for Brown during the draft. Watkins wasn’t exactly the odd man out, but it was clear during training camp that he wouldn’t be featured as much.

One of the more prominent shots from the Eagles’ hype video for the season was Hurts, Brown, and Smith standing atop the NovaCare Complex looking toward Lincoln Financial Field.

Goedert, who was behind Zach Ertz on the tight end depth chart in his first three seasons, knows what it’s like to have to wait your turn. He knows what it’s like to think you’re open, only to find out later that maybe you weren’t.

“I’ve been through it my entire career,” Goedert said. “And, yeah, there are times when you beat your guy and you think the ball should come, but the safety started driving and Jalen saw that and went in a different direction.”

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Sirianni said he doesn’t want Hurts forcing throws just to make everyone happy. He acknowledged, specifically referencing Smith, that he and Steichen, who calls the plays, are cognizant during the game of spreading the love around.

“I’m definitely thinking about that, but I’m also thinking about the flow of the game,” Steichen said on Tuesday. “That’s the biggest thing. There are certain things I want to get called, and I’m like, ‘Hey, that might not be the right time for this,’ so that’s a balancing act.”

It benefits the Eagles to not become too predictable. That is one reason why Hurts’ ability to improvise with his legs makes him so difficult to defend. But his coaches also want him to run plays as designed, especially if his receivers are open downfield.

“I think every player’s assignment on the field is to execute the play to the best of its ability and do their job,” Hurts said. “That’s one thing I’ve been trying to do all camp. And I try and carry that to the games.”

Still, if there is a Batman, it’s Hurts. Slay didn’t include the quarterback in his superhero scenario. In his mind, there are only leading men at the receiver position.

“No Robins,” Slay said when asked about possible Boy Wonders. “We got no backups. We got no sidekicks. We got nothing but Batmans.”

Inquirer Eagles beat reporters EJ Smith and Josh Tolentino preview the team’s Week 2 game against the Minnesota Vikings. Watch at Inquirer.com/EaglesGameday