Even during the program’s down years in the 2000s, Pitt football has been known to produce quality NFL talent. With many alumni going on to find NFL success it shouldn’t come as a complete surprise that this year will be the ninth straight season that Pitt will have an alumnus in the Super Bowl.
Avonte Maddox of the Philadelphia Eagles will suit up against the Kansas City Chiefs in State Farm Stadium at Glendale, Arizona when the two conference winners meet in Super Bowl LVII on Sunday, February 12 at 6:30 p.m. EST. This came after the Eagles thrashing of the San Francisco 49ers this past Sunday, 31-7.
Maddox appeared in the NFC Championship game after missing the previous three weeks due to a toe injury. He had three tackles in the game and wasn’t needed too much after the 49ers saw injuries to two of their quarterbacks, with rookie starter Brock Purdy coming back into the game out of necessity despite suffering an injury in the first quarter.
Regardless of the 49ers being limited passing wise in the NFC Championship, Maddox has been a key player in the Eagles’ secondary since being drafted by them in the fourth round of the 2018 NFL Draft.
Earlier in his career, the Eagles bounced him around the secondary before making him their nickel corner last season. He’s since thrived in that role, being rated the No. 9 overall cornerback in the NFL by ProFootballFocus last year and can be argued as one of the game’s best slot cornerbacks currently.
Maddox was injured for much of this season and only appeared in nine regular season games, making eight starts. His impact has been felt in those games as he’s forced three fumbles, caught an interception, registered a sack and made 43 tackles this past season.
And now he’ll have a chance to make an impact in the Super Bowl, like so many other Pitt players have done before him.
The most recent example, of course, is Los Angeles Rams star defensive tackle Aaron Donald, who won the Super Bowl last year by sacking Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow on the game’s final play. Donald went up against wide receiver Tyler Boyd in that game, also from Pitt.
Donald’s win though marked three consecutive seasons in which a Pitt player had been a part of the NFL’s Super Bowl winning team, although the past three seasons Pitt had at least one player on each team so a win, and a loss, was guaranteed.
Of the previous eight Super Bowls at least one Pitt player has been on five of the winning teams and six of the losing teams with Pitt players facing off in three of those games.
Including Maddox this year, there has now been 12 different Pitt players to have made, at least, one of the last nine Super Bowls with three – Donald (2019, 2022), LeSean McCoy (2020, 2021) and Dion Lewis (2017, 2018) – appearing in multiple Super Bowls over that time frame.
The full list of recent Pitt Super Bowl participants is found below with winners in bold:
2022 – Tyler Boyd (Cincinnati), Aaron Donald (Los Angeles)
2021 – Maurice Ffrench (Kansas City), LeSean McCoy (Tampa Bay), Jordan Whitehead (Tampa Bay)
2020 – LeSean McCoy (Kansas City), K’Waun Williams (San Francisco)
2019 – Aaron Donald (Los Angeles)
2018 – Nicholas Grigsby (Atlanta), Dion Lewis (Atlanta)
2017 – Jabaal Sheard (Denver), Dion Lewis (Denver)
2016 – Chas Alecxih (Seattle)
2015 – Darrell Revis (New England)
awesome!
h2p