What If The Eagles Play Avonte Maddox At Safety Versus The Bucs

For the second straight day of Eagles Practice, Safety Reed Blankenship did not participate due to a Groin Injury. With Rookie Sydney Brown out with a season-ending Knee Injury and Justin Evans on Injured Reserve, Philadelphia's defense looks shorthanded in the secondary ahead of Monday Night's Playoff game in Tampa.

The Eagles Defense has allowed over 410 Total Yards in each of the last two games and the team has been outscored by a total of 21 points versus the Arizona Cardinals and New York Giants.  One option Philadelphia has for their matchup with the Buccaneers is to shuffle the players in their secondary.

What if the Eagles moved Avonte Maddox to Safety to play alongside Kevin Byard? During Maddox's career in Philadelphia, he has played games at Safety during his six seasons with the Eagles.  When he played Safety, it was in Jim Schwartz's Defensive Scheme which is different from the Eagles' current Defensive system that Sean Desai and Matt Patricia are calling this season.  Maddox still has the most NFL experience at the position than anyone else healthy on the roster not named Kevin Byard.

So if Maddox is getting practice reps at Safety, who should play Nickel Cornerback? Well, Philadelphia signed Bradley Roby back in October to play the Nickel Corner position and he has 10 years of NFL experience with 135 games played.  He is on paper the best option to play in the slot where Maddox usually plays if Avonte is going to play at Safety.

But if we go back to September 25th, when the Eagles last traveled to Tampa and won 25-11 against the Buccaneers, there was another player who played Nickel Corner: James Bradberry. The 30-year-old Cornerback was moved from Outside Cornerback to Nickel to match up with one of the best Slot Receivers, Tampa's Chris Godwin. The Bucs Receiver had 3 catches for 32 Yards in that game. So instead of Bradley Roby, maybe the Eagles should play Bradberry at Nickel Cornerback and play Avonte Maddox at Safety on Monday Night.

With Maddox at Safety and Bradberry at Nickel Corner, the Eagles already have players available who can play at Outside Cornerback. Kelee Ringo and Eli Ricks have played in recent weeks after Darius Slay had Knee Surgery. This season, Ringo has played 199 Defensive Snaps compiling One Interception along with 17 Solo Tackles and Ricks has played 301 Defensive Snaps compiling Three Passes Defended along with 13 Solo Tackles.

If the Eagles decide to play Avonte Maddox at Safety if Reed Blankenship is unavailable to play on Monday Night, here is the Philadlephia Starting Secondary based on the information I laid out above:
Safeties: Kevin Byard and Avonte Maddox
Outside Cornerbacks: Darius Slay and Kelee Ringo
Nickel Cornerback: James Bradberry