After Darius Slay got blocked all the way out of the end zone into the back wall by 270-pound Steelers tight end Darnell Washington Sunday, he immediately left the field to get checked out in the blue medical tent on the sideline.
“I got cleated,” he explained after the game. “Oh man, it was gushing full of blood. I said, ‘All right, I need to go get cleaned up,' because they were going to take me out anyway, because they saw the blood coming out my leg.
"So, yeah, I just got to go get cleaned up on the sidelines and make sure it doesn’t bleed all through my sock.”
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Philadelphia sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
He missed five snaps and was back in the game.
Just another day at the office for Slay, who’s missed more than 250 snaps this year with a seemingly endless series of injuries. But almost every time he’s left the field, he’s found his way back by the end of the game just because he wants to be out there so badly for his team.
And he’s not going to let a little knee, ankle or groin injury – or blood gushing out of his leg – stop him.
“Every time I think about Slay and talk about Slay, I talk about how good a teammate he is – and that’s true – and how good of a player he is, but he is physically and mentally tough,” Nick Sirianni said.
Philadelphia Eagles
Find the latest Philadelphia Eagles news, highlights, analysis and more with NBC Sports Philadelphia.
“And he is resilient and able to fight through things that he’s going through and come back out and still play great football. So, man, there’s a reason Slay has the ‘C’ on his chest.”
Let’s look at Slay’s season.
He played every snap the first two games of the season, then left the game against the Saints after Trevor Penning blocked him into a TV camera on the sideline. He missed nine snaps and came back.
A week later, he missed nine snaps in the Bucs game – that injury was never identified – but came back.
He missed 28 snaps against the Browns but came back, then half the Bengals game and all of the Jaguars game with a groin injury. He missed 36 snaps in the Cowboys game with an ankle injury but was back in the third quarter. He got hurt twice in the Rams game, came back after the first injury, then missed the rest of that game and the Ravens game with a concussion. He left the Panthers game but only missed two snaps, then made it back onto the field against the Steelers after missing just five snaps.
In all, Slay has missed 278 snaps this year – that’s 32 percent of the Eagles’ defensive snaps. And the Eagles are lucky to have Isaiah Rodgers, who’s been fine filling in when Slay’s gotten hurt.
But this is a guy who played 92 percent of the snaps in his first four seasons with the Eagles and 93 percent of the snaps in his seven years with the Lions.
From 2014 through 2023, Slay played 9,184 snaps. Patrick Peterson is the only corner that played more.
But when Slay has played, he’s been very good in this, his 12th NFL season.
Opposing quarterbacks have completed just 53.6 percent of their passes when targeting Slay, which is 6th-best out of 52 corners who’ve been targeted at least 50 times. He’s allowed 6.1 yards per target, which is 10th-best, and he’s allowed just two touchdowns, tied for 11th-best.
He doesn’t have an interception – none of the Eagles corners do – but he does have 10 pass breakups, including a game-clincher against the Panthers.
He’s not the player he used to be, and he won’t be making his seventh Pro Bowl this year. But he can still play, he’s added a dimension of physicality he didn’t have when he got here, and he’s a key part of the NFL’s top-ranked pass defense.
And no matter what he’s going through physically, as long as the trainers allow it, he’ll be out there with his teammates.
That shows tremendous toughness and resilience.
“I think he definitely has all of that,” Vic Fangio said. “I think he's having fun. I think he's enjoying playing.
“For a guy that's, I don't know, a 12-year veteran, and he's itching to get back out there? I just think that speaks volumes for him and I think most of our team is that way.”
Subscribe to Eagle Eye anywhere you get your podcasts:
Apple Podcasts | YouTube Music | Spotify | Stitcher | Simplecast | RSS | Watch on YouTube