DeVonta Smith Camp Update — August 16: The Number One Job Is Waiting on a Hamstring
2026 NFL Season · Monday, Aug 17
DeVonta Smith missed another full week of team drills with his hamstring and sat the preseason opener, though he was running routes and cutting on the side by Tuesday. The football case from June is intact. The reps to rehearse it keep not happening.
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DeVonta Smith has still not practiced. He was a non-participant at Wednesday's session with the hamstring injury, per Dave Zangaro at NBC Sports Philadelphia, and he did not play in Saturday's preseason opener in Baltimore, per Ed Kracz at SI. Last week's watch item was a return to practice this week, and the answer was no.
There is a brighter thread inside that. Anthony DiBona at Athlon Sports reported that Smith was on the field before Tuesday's practice working with a trainer, running routes, cutting, and simulating plays, and framed him as progressing toward a return. Offensive coordinator Sean Mannion's own review was three words, quote, Smitty's been awesome. Nobody in the building is talking about this like a long-term problem.
The June preview made two arguments about Smith. The first was about scoring: he caught 77 passes on a hundred 13 targets last season and scored only four touchdowns, one of the most suppressed scoring rates we track, and touchdown droughts like that tend to stabilize or rebound rather than continue. The second was about the role: with A.J. Brown traded to New England, Smith inherits the number one receiver job and the target volume that comes with it, an upside case we said was real but not something the data could certify in advance.
Neither argument took damage this week, and that matters. But the role argument was always going to be proven in reps, and Smith is accumulating none of them in a brand-new offense under a first-time play-caller. Every week he watches from the side is a week Dontayvion Wicks catches red-zone touchdowns from Jalen Hurts with the top unit, which is precisely what happened Wednesday.
Does the June read hold? COMPLICATED. The scoring-rebound case and the number one role are both untouched on paper, but the injury has now cost him the entire installation phase of the offense built around him, and a soft-tissue injury at receiver in August is the kind of thing that lingers into September if rushed.
The checkable things for next week: whether Smith gets back into team drills at all, and if he does, whether he steps straight into the featured role or gets eased in. The trainer-session footage says soon. The practice report has to say it too. We'll check next Sunday.
_Data via nflverse._
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