Philadelphia Eagles: Blake Countess is headed to the NFC Championship

Blake Countess has signed with the Philadelphia Eagles on four separate occasions.

Initially drafted by the team in the sixth round of the 2016 NFL Draft, 32 picks after Halapoulivaati Vaitai and 37 picks before Jalen Mills, Countess failed to make Philly’s roster coming out of camp and bounced from coast to coast over the next half-decade, landing with the Rams, the Eagles, the Jets, the Eagles, the Ravens, and then the Rams again, where he is now gainfully employed and surely hopeful to extend his third postseason run in Los Angeles a little bit longer.

Fortunately for Countess, after routing a Tampa Bay Buccaneers squad that gave the Eagles fits one week prior, his Los Angeles Rams get to return home for an NFC championship bout against the San Francisco 49ers at SoFi Stadium in sunny Inglewood, California.

Will Blake Countess make a massive on-field impact for the Los Angeles Rams next week? I mean, probably not, but there’s a reason why teams give everyone, even practice squad players, Super Bowl rings when they win it all: It truly takes a team to win it all.

Philadelphia Eagles fans can root for Blake Countess in the NFC Championship game.

Blake Countess has played two games with the Philadelphia Eagles.

In those two games, both of which took place in 2020, Countess played 31 snaps –  10 on defense, 21 on special teams- and recorded three tackles, all of which came versus the Washington Football Team on the final game of the regular season.

That has sort of been a trend for Countess over his NFL career. Despite appearing in 50 combined games so far in his career, Countess has only surpassed 40 defensive snaps on one occasion, all the way back in Week 16 of his rookie season. In the other 49, he’s largely even used as a depth, rotational defender who puts in work on special teams.

To his credit, playing on special teams and occasionally as a subpackage defender has proven incredibly fruitful for Countess. He’s earned $2.58 million over his career and will likely cash in again after the season, either back with the Rams or on a cheap deal elsewhere, maybe even back in Philly, where he initially signed back in August after being released from his futures deal in March.

While fans will point to the Matthew Staffords, Aaron Donalds, and Cooper Kupps of the world as the reasons for the Los Angeles Rams’ success, it takes a whole team, from the stars to the practice squad players, to get anywhere in the world of sports, even players signed in January just prior to the playoffs.

If you’re a Philadelphia Eagles-only fan, the playoffs can be an increasingly depressing time of year. Sure, you could watch another team, the San Francisco 49ers, the Buffalo Bills, or even the Los Angeles Rams, but why even bother? Well, even if it won’t directly serve as a replacement for seeing the midnight green and white on your television set, there are plenty of former players and coaches still in the hunt for a Super Bowl ring. If not, the Philadelphia 76ers are watchable. That’s something, right?