Eagles

Returning from Injury, Avonte Maddox Only Had to Play 19 Snaps in NFC Championship Game

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Jan 30th, 2023 · 11:45 AM EST

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Eagles snap counts:

The Avonte Maddox return was handled as follows:
18 snaps of nickel (Maddox NCB, CJGJ S)
2 snaps of "big nickel" (CJGJ NCB, Blankenship S)
1 snap of dime (CJGJ, Maddox, Blankenship all on field)

— Deniz Selman (@denizselman33) January 30, 2023

FYI Deniz is a mandatory Eagles follow. He does a lot of useful stuff with charts and numbers but doesn’t go overboard. It’s all very practical information and is easy to digest and understand.

But yeah, Maddox was returning to the lineup having not played since the Dallas game. He was out there for 19 snaps while Reed Blankenship played seven snaps, so that amounted to 41% and 15%, respectively. Marcus Epps, CJGJ, Darius Slay, and James Bradberry were out there for pretty much every single play before the starters came out of the game. There was very little reason to go DB-heavy since the Niners go heavy with Kittle/Kroft/McCaffrey/Juszczyk, which is why the base defense snaps are so high. The good thing about how the game unfolded is that Maddox didn’t have to play too much, and they more or less eased him back in with a light workload ahead of two more rest and recovery weeks before the Super Bowl. It’ll be huge to have the entire defensive backfield healthy and ready to go for the Super Bowl.