Eagles maintain ‘supreme confidence’ in kicker Jake Elliott after one of his worst games

A few days removed from reviewing one of the worst games of Jake Elliott’s career, special teams coordinator Michael Clay said his confidence has not wavered in the Eagles’ veteran kicker.

Elliott missed two field-goal attempts and an extra point Thursday in the Eagles’ 26-18 win over the Washington Commanders, underscoring an uncharacteristically shaky season for the 29-year-old. He has missed all four of his attempts from 50-plus yards this season and his five total missed field goals already equal the number he had in the previous two seasons combined.

When assessing the three errant kicks, the most Elliott has ever had in a game if you account for both field goals and extra points, Clay said the consistency of the misses actually gives him confidence that they were more of an aberration than a warning sign. Pointing to the right-to-left “draw” spin Elliott had on each kick, Clay said the kicker’s aim might need to be adjusted rather than any of his actual mechanics.

“At times, it’s just not your day,” Clay said Tuesday. “We’d probably be a little bit more on edge if the ball was sprayed all over the place, but if you saw the three kicks, they missed in the exact same spot. Right off that left upright. It was a draw and it kind of overdrew on him with a little bit of wind. When the spray chart is all over the place and you don’t really have an answer for that, I think that’s a little bit more worrisome. When the spray chart is right there within a couple inches, you go, ‘All right, I can fix this with my aiming point more than anything else.’”

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Elliott, who signed a four-year contract extension worth up to $24 million this past offseason, did recover after missing the 44- and 51-yarders against the Commanders. He made a 21-yard field goal in the second quarter, a 31-yarder in the third, and also gave the Eagles a nine-point lead with a made extra point in the fourth quarter in response to his missed PAT a drive earlier.

Clay said several times that he has “supreme confidence” in Elliott despite his regression this season. Elliott was named second-team All-Pro last year, going 30-for-32 on field goals (7-for-8 from 50 yards or farther) and missing just one extra point the entire season. Clay also mentioned that Elliott is striking the ball well despite the dip in accuracy.

“For him, I think it’s just a little bit of an aiming thing,” Clay said. “Everything is hindsight 20-20. If he goes back to it, he’d play it a little bit more to the right, but I don’t think he would change anything about how he was striking the ball. It was good contact; the ball was just falling right to left, he played a draw and the wind pushed it.”

Eagles coach Nick Sirianni had a similar message immediately after the game.

“He’s going through a tough time,” Sirianni said. “But this team believes so much in Jake Elliott because of his track record, who he is, the teammate he is, and the captain he is.”

Elliott has had down years in the past, most recently in 2020 when he missed five field goals, including two from inside 30 yards. Still, he has now tied his previous career high for missed field goals in a season with seven games left to play.

Although the Eagles won’t return to the practice field in earnest until Wednesday, Clay noted that Elliott spent time “tapping balls” on Monday to get back into a rhythm. With the postseason stretch fast approaching, the Eagles will need him to do just that as the weather changes and the stakes rise with each game.

“We all know, in these tight game situations, especially in the later half of the season, it comes down to a big kick,” Clay said. “So we have supreme confidence in Jake going forward and I know he’ll have supreme confidence going back in there and going to work [Wednesday].”

Although his secondary leans heavily on a pair of rookie cornerbacks playing at a high level, Vic Fangio is unafraid of the proverbial rookie wall.

The Eagles defense ranks among the league’s best in most metrics, basic or advanced. The group has allowed the fewest yards in the NFL, the fewest passing yards per attempt, and ranks fifth in defense-adjusted value over average, an efficiency metric that accounts for strength of opponent.

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When asked how he manages Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean, two central figures in the team’s secondary, the defensive coordinator downplayed the notion that the extended length of the NFL season will catch up to the first-year defensive backs the way it has for rookies in the past.

“Back in the day, you used to hear rookies hitting the rookie wall,” Fangio said. “I don’t think that rookie wall exists anymore. Because, back in the day, you’d have two-a-days in training camp. And when you’ve got a rookie that you thought would play, you’d practice him a lot, he’d play a lot in preseason games when there was four [games]. Well, that doesn’t happen anymore, so I don’t buy the rookie wall anymore. It’s not physical; it might be mental or emotional, but it’s not physical anymore in my opinion.”