Avonte Maddox Won't Say if He's Playing, but Don't Bet Against It
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PHILADELPHIA – He looked good running around, making a few sharp cuts inside the Eagles’ practice bubble on Thursday.
He said afterward he felt good, too.
What Avonte Maddox didn’t say is whether he would play in the NFC Championship Game against the plethora of offensive weapons the San Francisco 49ers will bring to Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday.
“I’m just taking it day-by-day,” said the Eagles’ nickel cornerback. “We’ll see as time gets closer how I feel.
“I felt pretty good. I was running around. First time being able to get back out there and do some things with the team in that way, so, like I said, going to take it day-by-day and see how I feel I when I get ready on Sunday.”
Maddox has been listed on the team's injury report as limited in both practices this week.
He has been out of the lineup since suffering a toe injury while making a sack of Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott in a Christmas Eve game.
He looked fine after the play, jumping for joy upon recording his first sack of the season and just the third of his career.
“It happened before I jumped up,” he said. “When it happened, I kind of like, looked down at my cleat because I thought the cleat was off the bottom of my shoe. But I was like, yeah, it’s still there. I jumped up and it was still there, but I’m feeling better.”
Maddox didn’t come out and say he was playing, but don’t be surprised if he does.
“I don’t think I’d be running with broken toes,” he responded when asked by SI Fan Nation Eagles Today what the injury's diagnosis was. “I don’t have a broken toe. My toe is fine. I’m not here to say what it is, but I’m ready to get back and play, so take that the way you want to take it.”
He said that if/when he does return, he will be at 100%.
“When I get on the field, I don’t baby anything,” he said. “I cut it loose. …I’m going to be me. When I get on the field I’m always going to be me.
“There’s no holding back. I’m going to go hard. When you see me out there on the field you’re going to see Avonte Maddox.”
It’s been a rough season from an injury standpoint for him. He’s had a hamstring injury and now the toe, and has played in just nine games.
Since Maddox has been out, the Eagles have seen the emergence of undrafted rookie safety Reed Blankenship.
Josiah Scott filled in for a time at the slot, until Chauncey Gardner-Johnson returned from a lacerated kidney on Jan. 8 after missing five games.
Gardner-Johnson, who had played safety prior to his injury, returned to play the slot, with Blankenship remaining in the lineup.
If Maddox returns, CGJ will likely be moved back to safety, with Blankenship returning to a reserve role.
Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglesmaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.
