A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith prop up Eagles’ stodgy offense with timely touchdowns vs. Browns

Whenever Grant Calcaterra lines up for a passing play, he can sense the wandering eyes of defenders directly across from him.

Such is life for the supporting cast of the Eagles’ passing game. With both A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith returning to the lineup on Sunday, the team’s 20-16 win against the Browns illustrated the gravity the pair have, and their tendency to deliver when the Eagles need them in the game’s pivotal moments.

Even after putting up a career-high 76 yards on four catches, Calcaterra acknowledged the role both Smith and Brown had in the team’s ability to scheme him open.

“Most of the time, nobody is concerned about where I’m at on the field in the passing game,” Calcaterra said. “I’m just lucky when the ball comes my way. But yeah, those guys do a tremendous job, they’re two of the best in the NFL, so a lot of the time the attention is going to them and it opens up targets for me.”

Brown and Smith had a restorative effect on the Eagles’ passing game after the former missed three games with a hamstring injury and the latter was sidelined for a game-and-a-half with a concussion.

The Eagles offense averaged just 193 passing yards in the games Brown missed compared to the 266 yards the team managed in the season-opening win against the Green Bay Packers with both Smith and Brown in the lineup. On Sunday, Jalen Hurts threw for 256 yards, with the receiving duo combining for 180 of them and each providing touchdown receptions to prop up an offense that needed saving on more than one occasion.

» READ MORE: Eagles squeak past the lowly Browns, 20-16, as A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith return with TD catches

Overseen by former Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, the Browns defense employed man coverage more often than the Eagles typically see considering their talent on the perimeter. Cleveland cornerback Denzel Ward, perhaps hampered by a hamstring injury that held him out of practice earlier in the week, didn’t follow Brown as he’s done with other top receivers this season. Instead, the former Pro Bowl cornerback spent most of the day against Smith while Cleveland shaded coverages to deploy more resources to Brown’s side.

Brown said he identified plenty of “Cover 6″ with one deep safety assigned specifically to his side, something he acknowledged comes with the territory of being a dominant wide receiver.

“It comes with it,” Brown said. “But whenever I get one-on-one, I want the ball, because I’m trying to change the game.”

Brown did just that, both giving the Eagles their first touchdown of the afternoon on a 22-yard catch and icing the game a few hours later with a 40-yard reception just after the two-minute warning.

On the 22-yard score, the Eagles identified man coverage by motioning Calcaterra just before the snap, effectively isolating Brown on Cleveland cornerback Martin Emerson in the slot. Brown ran a fade route, gained a step on Emerson and made an over-the-shoulder catch as he closed in.

“Honestly, I was begging for man,” Brown said. “The tight end motioned out and it let me know it was man-to-man. I just had to win the one-on-one and Jalen gave me a great ball. Thank God I held onto it.”

Hurts added, “He’s really good at catching the deep ball. He tracks it well, knows how to use his body well, he’s very strong and I think he’s gotten faster, too. So he made some great catches.”

Brown’s big play helped mask yet another discouraging start from the Eagles offense, which is the only unit in the NFL to have zero first-quarter points this deep into the year. The group went three-and-out on the opening series and managed just 16 net yards on the following drive.

After a 14-play drive led to a made field goal from Jake Elliott, Brown’s third-down catch gave temporary life to an offense desperately in need of it.

“A lot of things went wrong at the wrong times, so we have to fix that,” Calcaterra said. “But I’m happy with the way that we came out and played to win the game.”

Midway through the fourth quarter with the Eagles offense once again sputtering and the Browns mounting a comeback, Smith played the hero instead.

The Eagles called “mesh” against a man-coverage look, sending Smith on a shallow crossing route with tight end Jack Stoll mirroring his route to create traffic in the middle of the field. Similar to the play that freed Dallas Goedert for a pivotal fourth-quarter completion against the New Orleans Saints, Stoll effectively sprung Smith into open space and a 45-yard touchdown catch-and-run.

“We knew it was man,” Smith said. “It was a perfect man play.”

Still, even Smith acknowledged the group “left points out there” against a middle-of-the-road Browns defense willing to take risks on the back end.

“We’re definitely leaving points out there,” Smith said. “You can complain about winning, but if you play the way we played and win, you can kind of feel good about yourself. Knowing that you can get a whole lot better and say we played the way we did, we left some things out there that we left out there, but we’re still able to come out with a win, it says a lot. I know everybody in this building, we’re hard on ourselves, the coaches are hard on us, so we’re going to go out there and we’re going to continue to try to fix the things that we need to fix.”