PHILADELPHIA — Thirty-four years have passed since Mike Quick was one-half of what was supposed to be, and probably should have been, the best wide-receiving duo the Eagles have ever had. It was 1988. Quick had been to five straight Pro Bowls, eclipsing 1,000 receiving yards in a season three times, catching 11 touchdown passes in just 12 games during the strike-truncated 1987 campaign. Cris Carter, whom the Eagles had selected in the ‘87 supplementary draft and who went on to catch 1,101 passes in his Hall of Fame career, was entering his first full season in the NFL. It would have been reasonable to envision Randall Cunningham dropping back, closing his eyes, chucking the football blindly down the field, and having either Quick or Carter haul it in.
“I thought,” Quick said in a recent phone interview, “we’d be tough to deal with.”
Everyone did. But Quick’s body began to betray him: He broke his leg five games into the ‘88 season, had surgery on both of his knees the year after that, and tore his right quadriceps the year after that, playing just 18 games over those three years. Meanwhile, Carter’s drug and alcohol addiction compelled the Eagles to release him in 1990. That’s the thing about the Eagles and their wide-receiver tandems: Often, the promise has outstripped the production. And that cautious note is an appropriate one to strike before this season, because it is easy to get ahead of yourself when you think about A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, and the damage those two could do to opposing defenses. After all, they haven’t played together yet.
“They’re as good as any pair that’s in the league right now, and if I look at Eagles history, they’re potentially as good” as any pair, said Quick, who has been the team’s radio analyst since 1998. “When you haven’t done it, you have to say ‘potentially.’ But they bring a tremendous skill set to the game, and they’re different.”
Before the Eagles surrendered two draft picks in April, including a first-rounder, to acquire him, Brown had averaged more than 60 receptions, nearly 1,000 yards, and eight touchdowns per season over his three years with the Tennessee Titans. After the Eagles traded up in last year’s draft so they could snap him up with the 10th pick, Smith stepped right in as their No. 1 wideout: 64 catches, a franchise-rookie-record 916 yards, five touchdowns. Fine numbers. Finer numbers when you consider that Jalen Hurts was far from an elite quarterback last season. Similar numbers to Brown’s, although, as Quick said, their styles could hardly be more disparate.
“One guy is a big guy who could almost play running back if you needed him to,” Quick said, referring to Brown. “But he’s still nimble and athletic enough to be a highly effective wide receiver. At the line of scrimmage, he’s a powerful guy who can toss you to the side, and you’re going to lose against him because of his strength.
“The other guy, his feet are so quick. He’s so nifty and sleek at the line of scrimmage. When you get into the route, that sleek, slim guy can separate because he’s just so quick, so agile, and runs such great routes. You can overstate it if you like, but when you start to pay too much attention to one of them, then the other one is going to have a day against you.”
The Eagles’ past at the wide-receiver position only amplifies this sort of praise and the expectations for Brown and Smith. The franchise has had terrific, even great, wideouts before: Tommy McDonald, Harold Carmichael, Quick, Terrell Owens, DeSean Jackson, Jeremy Maclin. But it’s rare that the Eagles have had two such receivers at the same time. McDonald had Pete Retzlaff, a tight end. Carmichael had Ben Hawkins and Charlie Smith, who were solid but only intermittently outstanding. Todd Pinkston wasn’t drawing much attention away from Owens in 2004.
Catch for catch, yard for yard, Jackson and Maclin, particularly in 2010, were probably the best pairing in team history. “That was a really dynamic duo,” Quick said, “and they did what [Brown and Smith] have the ability to do.” But Jackson and Maclin were full-time starters together for just four seasons. The Eagles signed Brown to a four-year extension. Smith is just one year into his rookie contract. Both of them should be here a while, and the Eagles’ willingness to pay so high a price to get and keep Brown and Smith shows the evolution in their thinking from the late 1990s and early 2000s, when they settled for competent, affordable wide receivers because they regarded other positions to be of much higher value.
“Obviously a lot of resources used at that position,” Howie Roseman, the Eagles’ executive vice president and general manager, told reporters recently. “I feel like it was necessary to make sure that we gave Jalen an opportunity to play with guys around him. … I feel good about the character of those guys. I feel good about the level of play that those guys can bring to our team, and they complement each other really well.”
The excitement is understandable. All things being equal, the Eagles have two talented receivers who should be tough to deal with. Just remember: This is not the first time someone thought that.
