Avonte Maddox Gets Vote of Confidence
PHILADELPHIA - Avonte Maddox was dressed and presumably ready to return during last Thursday night's 22-21 win over the New York Giants after missing the previous three contests with an ankle injury.
The third-year cornerback, who entered the season as the starter on the outside opposite Darius Slay, participated in only three defensive snaps for Jim Schwartz, however, with slot CB Nickell Robey-Coleman shifting outside for the second consecutive game.
If any eyebrows were raised by that decision they were quickly lowered by the Eagles defensive coordinator on Tuesday.
“Oh, yeah, (Maddox is) our starting corner outside when he is healthy,” Schwartz said. “He was just coming back. It was a difficult week. We started his return to play and we didn’t have any practice, so it was really hard to gauge where he was. He wasn’t 100 percent sure. We weren’t 100 percent sure.”
Maddox suffered the ankle injury in the Week 3 deadlock with Cincinnati and returned to practice in a limited fashion in advance of the Week 6 matchup with Baltimore but remained on the sidelines in the 30-28 loss.
Then came the short prep week in advance of Thursday Night Football with the Giants and now an expanded timeframe before Sunday night's matchup with Dallas.
It’s likely Maddox will be given the full go this week and take over starting duties again.
“He was active (against the NYG) sort of as an emergency player,” said Schwartz. “He got pressed into service on some punt return stuff, and he was doing a good job staying warm in case we needed him. Because of some of the zones that we were playing at the end of the game we put him in at corner. We knew he wasn’t going to have to run 80 yards down the field to cover somebody, but we wanted him in there and he had felt good enough on those special teams snaps and kept himself warm.”
The undersized Maddox was not playing lights out before the injury but Schwartz did see some positive signs for a versatile player that played all over the Eagles secondary during his first two seasons.
The original plan when Maddox arrived as a fourth-round pick out of Pitt was slot CB because of his 5-foot-9 frame even though he had developed into a star with the Panthers on the outside.
“He was trending the right way,” said Schwartz. “Looks like he’s definitely trending to being able to get back in there. I thought Robey did a good job subbing in there, but Avonte is an outside corner for us and it will be good to get him back out there.”
John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's EagleMaven and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John every Tuesday and Thursday on "The Middle" with Eytan Shander, Harry Mayes, and Barrett Brooks on SportsMap Radio and PhillyVoice.com. He’s also the host of Extending the Play on AM1490 in South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen
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