Philadelphia Eagles: Now extend Dallas Goedert’s best friend too

When the Philadelphia Eagles opted against extending Dallas Goedert, it was a calculated decision.

While Goedert had looked like one of the best tight ends in the game during his first three seasons in the NFL, it was always as part of a two-tight end platoon alongside everyone’s favorite former tight end Zach Ertz. If Goedert could do it on his own, then yeah, extend the man like the player he’s proven to be, but if his efficiency statistics began to dip as a full-time, high-usage target, then maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea to see how the market plays out a few months down the line.

Well, as it turns out, Howie Roseman only needed four games to know Goedert was the guy in the post-Ertz-era, and he paid up to the tune of a four-year- $59 million extension with $35.7 million guaranteed.

On paper, this is a darn good deal. Goedert is at worst the Eagles’ second pass-catching option, and he’s one of the few players in the game who can quite literally do anything you’d ask a modern-day tight end to do, be that catch passes, run block, pass block, or even take the ball in his own hands and run the ball like a makeshift fullback, if, you know, a play-caller ever has the guts to call such a play.

Make no mistake about it, this is a good day for the Philadelphia Eagles, but now, the team needs to turn their attention to Dallas Goedert’s best friend and soon-to-be-former roommate Avonte Maddox and give him a similarly deserved extension for 2022 and beyond.

The Philadelphia Eagles need to extend another member of their 2018 NFL Draft class.

A year ago today, Avonte Maddox was a borderline disaster.

He was severely miscast as a full-time outside cornerback in Jim Schwartz’s scheme, seemingly the third different position the team tried him at since being drafted 125th overall in 2018 and finished out the year as one of the lowest-rated coverage players in the NFL regardless of position according to of Pro Football Focus.

Surely this was not an ideal situation to find oneself in heading into a contract year, but Maddox caught one heck of a break when Doug Pederson and Jim Schwartz left town and were replaced by Nick Sirianni and, most crucially of all, Jonathan Gannon, who finally put the former Pitt product at his natural position in the slot.

Fortunately, and not too surprisingly, if we’re being honest, Maddox has shined in his new role.

Through the first 10 games of the 2021 regular season, Maddox has been on the field for 63 percent of the Eagles’ snaps. He’s been targeted 39 times, allowing 32 catches for an average of six yards per catch, and has held receiver he’s faced out of the endzone. Factor in an interception, a half-sack on nine blitzing attempts, and a missed tackle percentage of 7.7, and it’s hard to argue that Maddox isn’t in the middle of his best professional season and the best season any slot cornerback has recorded in a midnight green uniform since Patrick Robinson won the Super Bowl at the end of the 2017 NFL season.

In hindsight, the Eagles should have extended Robinson back in 2018, but extending the player drafted to replace him a few months later to a would not only go a long way to shoring up the secondary long-term but do so as a homegrown talent drafted by the team.

Could Maddox earn a contract in the same vein as Gannon’s former star slot corner Kenny Moore, who signed a four-year, $33 million extension back in 2019? Or how about the four-year, $24 million deal Jalen Mills received from the Patriots to leave the City of Brotherly Love?

Either way, this is a very good problem to have.

In the NFL, you win by having the best players (duh). When a team drafts well, they can extend their own players to long-term deals, price permitting, and when they don’t, well, they have to look to external options who may or may not ultimately fit a scheme regardless of how they look on paper. Dallas Goedert fits that bill, and honestly, so does Avonte Maddox. If the Philadelphia Eagles are wise, both of them will be in the team’s plans long-term.