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Cornerback Avonte Maddox, who missed 29 games over the past four years, was released by the Eagles, a league source said, confirming a report from ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
The move was not a surprise.
Maddox, 27, has performed very well when healthy, but those healthy games have become less and less frequent.
He missed six games in 2020 with an ankle injury, played just nine games in 2022 thanks to ankle, knee and toe injuries and then was limited to four games last year after undergoing surgery to repair a torn pec in September. He returned for the final games of the season, but was nowhere near 100 percent.
With Maddox out for most of the year, the Eagles found themselves in serious trouble trying to draft an inside cornerback, and never did.
Maddox signed a three-year, $22.5 million extension in November 2021 with $13.3 million guaranteed. He had one year left on that deal with a base salary of $6.85 million and a salary figure of $9.676913 million, according to OverTheCap.
If the Eagles were to release Maddox with a post-June 1 designation, and it’s still unclear if they did, he would count around $1.96 million against their 2024 cap hit and then around $5.76 million against their 2025 cap hit. After June 1, you would have about $7.72 million in dead money this year. That would be a savings of about $2 million with no dead money beyond this season.
Maddox was a 4th-round pick in the Eagles’ standout 2018 draft class, which even without picks in the first, third or fifth round brought them Dallas Goedert, Maddox, Josh Sweat and Jordan Mailata.
He became an immediate contributor as a rookie, starting nine games and making two passes. He only had two more interceptions in the next five years. He played 64 games in an Eagles uniform, starting 38. Maddox and Jalen Mills are the only cornerbacks the Eagles have selected in the last 20 years to start at least 30 games as an Eagles.
But even with the Eagles’ question marks at the position heading into the offseason, his high salary and frequent injuries made him a likely roster cut.
With Jason Kelce retiring, Maddox released, Fletcher Cox and Brandon Graham out of contract and facing uncertain futures and Boston Scott also out of contract, the only players under contract who were here in 2018 are Lane Johnson, Jake Elliott, Rick Lovato, Goedert, Sweat. , Mailata and Greg Ward.
What’s the plan in the slot?
Eli Ricks played 144 of his 301 defensive snaps in the slot last year and for an undrafted rookie showed promise. Zech McPhearson, who began the summer as Maddox’s backup, will be healthy after missing all of last year with a torn Achilles tendon. Sydney Brown played 141 of his 335 defensive snaps in the slot, but could be out several weeks of the regular season after suffering a torn ACL on the final day of the regular season.
Midyear acquisition Bradley Roby played 316 snaps but didn’t play much late in the season and is an impending free agent. Mario Goodrich had some run in the slot early, but he didn’t do particularly well.
“We gave some guys a chance to do it,” Howie Roseman said at the combine. “I have to do a better job of bringing in more players to be able to play that position.”
And that’s likely the plan, to target an interior corner either in the draft or free agency, although it’s possible the Eagles could re-sign Maddox to a significantly smaller contract loaded with playing time incentives in case of get hurt again. Schefter tweeted that the two sides will continue negotiations.
But even if they bring him back, the Eagles still have to allocate some resources to what has essentially become a starting position due to Maddox’s injury history.
Maddox is the second defensive back the Eagles cut ties with in the past week. They released starting safety Kevin Byard on Friday.