Why do the Philadelphia Eagles refuse to play Avonte Maddox in the slot?
Why won’t the Philadelphia Eagles play Avonte Maddox at his natural position?
Welp, Philadelphia Eagles training camp is officially underway, and we’re already getting storylines on top of storylines, on top of storylines to totally not overreact to.
Jalen Reagor looks like a mix of DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin. Carson Wentz has swollen up to the size of a massive, late-90s linebacker with blazing red hair and a cannon for an arm thanks to his newfound fatherhood, and all of those big, pre-camp positional group questions have started to take shape. Greg Ward? Well, he got the nod at first-team slot alongside Jackson and Reagor, a situation certainly helped by Alshon Jeffery’s unavailability. We also learned that Javon Hargrave will probably get the starting nod over Malik Jackson come Week 1, that is, if he’s fully recovered from a pec injury he suffered right out the gate.
Fortunately, Hargrave didn’t suffer a Gerald McCoy-level injury, but come on man, can’t the Eagles go one preseason without an injury? *sigh*
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But most consequentially of all, we finally have an answer as to who Jim Schwartz and company are giving the initial nod to at CB2 across from Darius Slay: Avonte Maddox.
The move (more on it here) isn’t too surprising. Maddox received a glowing endorsement from Howie Rodeman during the offseason, Cre’von LeBlanc is more of an inside guy, and the team’s two 2017 cornerback draftees have yet to prove themselves to be viable every-down starters, but even if it’s ultimately the right move for right now, it may not be long-term.
Why? Because Maddox could be an absolutely incredible slot cornerback if given a chance.
I know, I know, more slot cornerback talk. ‘The Eagles already have Nickel Robey-Coleman, Will Parks, K’Von Wallace, and LeBlanc. Why are we talking about the future? What does NFL stand for? That’s right my friends, Not For Long, forget about the future, it’s win now or bust.’
Cool? Now that that’s out of the way, the Philadelphia Eagles are in sort of a weird place in 2020. Sure, the team has a ton of top-tier talent, even if the NFL 100 list severely undervalued most of them, but most of those players are near, or over 30 with the sort of massive cap numbers typically associated with marquee players. If the Eagles had top-tier youngsters on rookie-scale contracts waiting in the wings to take their place then yeah, no worries at all. If that were the case, the Eagles would be set up for a long string of success the likes of which would make Nigel Bradham blush, but unfortunately, that isn’t really the case.
Say what you will about Reagor, Boston Scott, Josh Sweat, and even Andre Dillard but those players are all still question marks in the eyes of talent evaluators until proven otherwise.
You see, for reasons that now look silly in hindsight, Roseman prioritized adding depth pieces in the immediate aftermath of the Birds’ Super Bowl victory over drafting higher-upside players with star potential in the early rounds. Why does this matter? Well, outside of Miles Sanders and Dallas Goedert, the Eagles really don’t have any elite players waiting in the wings to take the league by storm, which could spell disaster down the line if they can’t find more marquee talent.
If Maddox were to take the leap from average to borderline-elite in the slot, a position tailor-made for his body, size, and athletic acumen, that would give the Eagles a third legitimate building block to build their next-generation around, instead of hoping Fletcher Cox and the like remain Pro Bowlers deep into their 30s.
But, is that even possible? ‘If Maddox is such a good slot option, why is he being played outside?’
Well, here’s the thing – we don’t really know. In college, Maddox played on the outside with Pat Narduzzi’s Pittsburgh Panthers and in the NFL he’s actually earned more starts at free safety than any other position across the defensive secondary. Projecting Maddox in the slot is just that, a projection, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a hard one to scout.
Measuring in at 5-foot-9, 184 pounds, Maddox is a rather unusual fit on the outside of an NFL defense. While Schwartz can totally mitigate how often he’s placed on a taller option with creative scheming, there will certainly be times week-in and week-out where Maddox is facing off against a wide receiver who stands five, six, seven inches taller, and 30-40 pounds heavier. These matchups aren’t going to go particularly well, even if Maddox’s 4.39 recovery speed should help to mitigate any errors in coverage.
Playing in the slot, by contrast, is much more about lateral quickness, explosiveness, and an eye for the ball, all of which are featured prominently on Maddox’s calling card. Sure, he’ll still struggle occasionally with the bigger slot types like Cooper Kupp, Adam Theilen, and Keenan Allen but with experience playing on the outside, Maddox can always move outside and allow Slay to kick inside when needed.
That’s one aspect of slot Maddox that none of the team’s other interior options present: Outside optionality.
While Maddox could in-theory play on the outside and kick it inside against the nickel, an unusual alignment most notably utilized by the Broncos with Chris Harris pre-2019, having the optionality to move him, Slay, and a hypothetical third option around the field as need be is surely a better option than the Eagles’ tried-and-proven-untrue method of keeping each player trapped on their respective island regardless of down, distance, and alignment.
Despite being arguably the best slot cornerback of his generation, Harris played really below-par in 2019 as an outside-only cornerback, a trend that should end in 2020 when he returns to the inside as a member of the Chargers on a two-year, $20 million deal.
For better or worse, the Philadelphia Eagles are eventually going to have to settle on someone as their long-term answer in the slot. From Patrick Robinson to Sidney Jones, Cre’von LeBlanc, and now the ‘slot god’ himself NRC, bouncing around from one journeyman to another is not a viable long-term solution to team building, regardless of how effective any of these options are. If Avonte Maddox is good enough to be that guy long-term, why not give him the oppertunity? Putting a player in the best position to succeed has to be the best way to put a player in the best position to succeed, right? I mean think about it, who would you rather have, 2019 Chris Harris (bad) or 2018 Chris Harris (amazing)?