3 Philadelphia Eagles players who were snubbed by the Pro Bowl

Philadelphia Eagles slot cornerback Avonte Maddox.

The NFL Pro Bowl hasn’t found a way to appropriately honor slot cornerbacks to this point in the game’s history. On the initial list, only seven defensive backs were named to the game, which is less than the number of cornerbacks and safeties some teams will deploy in a single game.

Of those seven defensive backs, three are safeties – which isn’t even two players per position – and the other four spend the vast majority of their time in any given game playing on the outside, which suggests that teams just don’t value interior defenders, which is empirically untrue. Yes, Darius Slay is a big reason why the Eagles’ secondary is good, but do you know what? So is Avonte Maddox, and he certainly deserves some recognition for his efforts.

Now sure, Maddox doesn’t play every single snap, and he doesn’t have the same name recognition as Jalen Ramsey or Marshon Lattimore, but he has only allowed 351 yards in coverage on 57 total targets and has only one touchdown versus one pick on well over 628 defensive snaps. He’s the Eagles’ second-best defender according to Pro Football Focus and ranks fourth league-wide among cornerbacks who spend the majority of their time deployed out of the slot behind only Nate Hobbs, Tavierre Thomas, and Mike Hilton.

Considering all three of those players are members of teams in the AFC, that should have placed Avonte Maddox as the firm favorite to represent the NFC in the Pro Bowl at slot cornerback.

NFL, don’t make this mistake again; add slot cornerback to the voting block in 2022.