Fran Duffy has been flooding his Twitter timeline with annotated All-22 shots of plays from Sunday's game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Philadelphia Eagles. One that stood out to me was the view of Doug Martin's first big run of the day, and pay special attention to Donovan Smith (#76) burying linebacker Demeco Ryans (#59) at the second level.
Shot 6 - Good play design by #Bucs on Martin's first long run. Nice 'FB Flip' call, outleverages the #Eagles Defense pic.twitter.com/fMSvOvNGOW
— Fran Duffy (@fduffy3) November 23, 2015
While I think Donovan Smith's pass blocking has been inconsistent, largely because his technique tends to go lazy a little too often, he's been consistently good as a run-blocker and especially impressive on the second level. He and Ali Marpet are both capable of delivering some nasty blocks, and have the athleticism to consistently get to linebackers in space, something a lot of linemen struggle to do.
That wasn't the only time Smith did that, note. He was also crucial on Martin's second big run, the 84-yarder that set a franchise record for longest run. While Smith has things to work on, there's a lot of potential and athleticism, and he's certainly looked promising for a second-round rookie.