Avonte Maddox has Surgery; A.J. Brown on Jalen Hurts, Super Bowl, and More
Avonte Maddox became the second known Eagles player to undergo surgery since Super Bowl LVII ended.
On Tuesday, the cornerback tweeted a photo of him recovering from an operation to repair a toe injury on his left foot.
Last week, right tackle Lane Johnson had surgery to repair an adductor muscle tear.
Maddox suffered the toe injury while making a sack during the Eagles’ Christmas Eve game in Dallas.
It was an injury-riddled season for the fifth-year cornerback, as he battled an ankle injury that cost him two games, a knee injury that landed him on injured reserve causing him to miss another four games, then, finally, a toe injury that had him miss the final two regular-season games and the divisional playoff game against the New York Giants.
A.J. BROWN ON THE RAW ROOM PODCAST
Wearing a royal blue hat emblazoned with KC, Eagles WR A.J. Brown had plenty to say on a podcast called Raw Room that came out on Tuesday.
Now, the KC in this case wasn’t the Chiefs, but the Kansas City Royals.
Brown had plenty to say on a few topics, such as QB Jalen Hurts, the Super Bowl, and his former team, the Titans.
He threw his support behind Hurts.
“If you do not pay (him), just ship me off wherever he gonna go," said Brown.
Brown isn’t going anywhere and neither is Hurts.
GM Howie Roseman already expressed his desire to keep him an Eagle for the foreseeable future with a contract extension expected to be completed this offseason.
Brown also mentioned that, before the Eagles expressed heavy interest in trading for him on draft day, the Chiefs and Jets were interested in trading for him, too.
The receiver said he would have stayed in Tennessee for $22 million (he got a four-year extension worth $25M per year with the Eagles)
“It had nothing to do with football, it had to do with my daughter,” said Brown. “For people to say I didn’t want to stay in Tennessee, that’s stupid. It wasn’t even about football, the team could’ve been horrible, I would’ve stayed in Tennessee. “I’m happy where I am now but for real-life reasons, I wanted to be there.”
Brown’s thoughts on the Super Bowl were that the media obligations were all-consuming.
“Media was crazy, kind of really took away from the game,” he said. “…How many times you going to ask me the same question? Players were there just there for the game. It’s for entertainment for everybody else but the players.”
Brown said the longer TV timeouts took getting used to as did the delayed start that takes place in all Super Bowls.
“You run out of the tunnel and you’re ready to play right away,” he said, “but we sat there for like 20 minutes.”
On the James Bradberry penalty in the final two minutes, Brown said: “(KC safety L’Jarius) Sneed grabbed me on the first possession. I fell to the ground. It happens. I think what everybody is so upset about is you don’t want the game to end like that. Put it in the other team’s hands and let’s see what happens…Nobody wanted to see it end like that.”
Brown also told a funny story about head coach Nick Sirianni telling a story to the team one day about seeing his neighbor’s dog going poop and describing how the neighbor perfectly executed picking up the poop.
“It’s in the details, that’s what we gotta do,” said Brown about Sirianni’s message with that story. “The volume goes from low to high.”
There’s plenty more of Brown’s interview on the podcast and it can be found here
Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglestoday.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.