What DeVonta Smith, Jimmie Ward said about the ‘catch’

Philadelphia wide receiver DeVonta Smith’s one-handed grab for a 29-yard gain in the NFC Championship Game was “a pretty sweet catch,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said. And if the former Alabama All-American really didn’t catch the football, what he did next, Sirianni said, was even sweeter.

Sirianni decided to go for it on fourth-and-3 at the San Francisco 49ers 35-yard line on Philadelphia’s opening possession. Forced out of the pocket, Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts threw on the run for his former Crimson Tide teammate.

Smith came down with a leaping reception at the San Francisco 6-yard line. At least that’s how the officials marked it, although replays indicated 49ers slot corner Jimmie Ward had reached around Smith and knocked the football out of his grasp as they fell to the turf.

After the game, Smith didn’t say he didn’t catch the ball. But he didn’t say he did either.

“I didn’t know if I really caught it or not, so just get to the next play,” Smith said.

Philadelphia got to the next play quickly at Smith’s urging, snapping the football for an incomplete pass just 28 seconds after the previous snap.

“Any doubt, you just got to go ahead and rush and get into the next play,” Smith said. “We talk about it all the time. If you never know about a catch, get into the hurry-up.”

Sirianni said the aftermath of the catch-or-not showed Smith’s “football intelligence.”

“Smart players do smart things,” Sirianni said. “And he did a smart thing right there. He made an unbelievable play. I don’t know if he caught it or not. I haven’t seen the TV copy. He didn’t catch it? Well, then that was even better of a play. Situational football’s not just third down and red zone and two-minute. …

“DeVonta did a great job. I’m going to say he caught it, though. I’m going to say that because it was a pretty sweet catch. But DeVonta did a great job, and Jalen did a great job of getting the guys to the line of scrimmage and running a play.”

Two snaps after Smith’s big play, running back Miles Sanders ran in the first of his two touchdowns and the Eagles were on their way to a 31-7 victory and Super Bowl LVII.

San Francisco coach Kyle Shanahan said he did not challenge the play because he thought Smith caught the football.

“Because the replay we saw didn’t definitively show that,” Shanahan said when asked why he didn’t throw his red challenge flag. “We saw one up on the scoreboard. I was going to throw one anyways just to hope to take the chances, but they showed one up on the scoreboard that didn’t have all the angles you guys saw, and that looked like a catch, so we didn’t want to waste a timeout, which we definitely would have if we didn’t see that. Then I heard they got a couple of other angles that you guys ended up seeing later that it was not a catch.”

In the San Francisco locker room after the game, reporters told Ward that Smith hadn’t cleanly caught the football. The former Davidson High School standout was still smarting about being flagged for defensive pass interference in the second quarter, too.

“Was it incomplete? It was?” Ward said. “So you telling me they hit me with a PI that was a good play and they said he caught the ball?

“Oh, man, I had a good game then. Hey, man, Jimmie Ward, man – play nickel good and I play safety, man. You already know what time it is.”

Philadelphia will play the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII. The Chiefs defeated the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20 in the AFC Championship Game on Sunday. This season’s NFL championship game is scheduled to kick off at 5:30 p.m. CST Feb. 12 at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.

While Hurts was telling reporters in a press conference, “I know the job isn’t done,” Smith was telling reporters gathered around his locker, “Ultimately, the job’s not done.”

When asked where the pair developed that mentality, Smith answered: “Bama.”

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.