Vinny Curry signed a five-year contract extension worth $46.25 million this offseason.

He played just 16 snaps on Sunday.

Curry was paid by the Eagles like a starting defensive end who was expected to pile up sacks and big plays. Instead, he’s clearly been the third option coming off the bench, behind Connor Barwin and Brandon Graham.

“I mean, it’s only the fifth game,” Curry said on Thursday. “It’ll get better. Yeah, it’s going to change.”

So far this season, Barwin has taken 176 snaps, Graham 168 and Curry just 90. Those 90 snaps account for just 40 percent of the Eagles’ defensive plays and it’s just slightly more than the 35 percent he played in 2015.

But Curry “absolutely” expects to get more snaps now that he’s completely healthy. On Thursday, he said the Lions game was the first he played this season without a knee brace because of a sprained MCL. Curry first hurt his knee in the third preseason game against the Colts.

“So they were helping me out,” Curry said of his limited snaps through the first four games.

While playing just 16 snaps on Thursday, Curry did pick up his first sack of the season. And defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz expressed some regret that Curry didn’t get more plays against the Lions.

“It's a tough situation,” Schwartz said. “It's easy to rotate when things are going [well], you know what I mean? It's easy to tag the next guy. The next guy goes in, you're on a roll, you're getting stops and things like that. When you start giving up plays and you start giving up touchdowns, it becomes a little bit harder just to get those guys in rotation for a lot of different reasons. ... But, you know, traditionally we'd like to get him or theoretically we'd like to get him more.”

Way back in OTAs, Curry was working with the first-team defense on the other side of Barwin. But as the weeks went on, Graham overtook him for a starting job and that’s the way it has been ever since.

When asked if it bothers him to not be a starter, Curry paused then said, “No, not really.”

According to Schwartz, Curry has done a good job of pass rushing early in the season and has been affecting quarterbacks. He didn’t mention Curry in the run game.

“He's a key part of our defense,” Schwartz said, “and he'll always be involved.”