Eagles

Jim Schwartz is Appreciative of Darius Slay for Playing Through Injury

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Dec 8th, 2020 · 10:11 AM EST

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Rough outing for Darius Slay in Green Bay.

Most cornerbacks would have trouble with Davante Adams in 2020, but Slay was handed the assignment six days after trying to cover DK Metcalf while entering the game not fully healthy.

Here’s what defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz said about that on Tuesday:

“I was very appreciative of Slay, he wasn’t 100% coming into the game, went out and played. Probably the biggest thing, when he gave up his last completion, I saw him limping on that play and I was trying to get (Michael) Jacquet in for him and trying to get Slay to go down, like ‘look, you’re hurt, just let the officials take you out of the game.’ But he’s got so much pride as a player that he didn’t want to do that. And then we gave up that completion and were able to get him in and sort of switched Avonte Maddox to shadowing (Adams). MJ came in and played tough, made a couple of tackles and stuff like that. We were able to sort of execute there but we didn’t play our best football at the corner position. We left a lot of plays on the field, but I was very appreciative of Slay going out there when he wasn’t 100%.”

It’s certainly a blue collar, lunch pail type of thing to go out and play through injury, but you have to the question of whether or not the coaching staff should have allowed him to be out there in the first place, if he wasn’t 100%.

It’s one thing for a player to want to gut it out or step up, but twice this year the Birds have been burned in situations that are at least somewhat similar. Lane Johnson ended up on the surgery table after trying to play through his ankle injury. DeSean Jackson wanted to make a play for his team, but got injured returning a punt after just coming back from his injury. That specific situation is a little different, but you could ask Dave Fipp and Doug Pederson whether, in hindsight, they could have been more conservative with D Jax and shut down his request.

Maybe that’s the case with Slay, maybe not, but it’s two weeks in a row now he’s had trouble with the opposing team’s #1 receiver. This week he gets Michael Thomas, so it’s not going to be any easier for him. Metcalf caught 10 passes for 177 yards last week and Adams went for 122 yards on ten catches with a pair of touchdowns. It’s not all on Slay, but if the guy is not fully healthy and he’s being asked to cover elite guys, maybe somebody has to step in and disallow that.