Eagles K Jake Elliott: For Better Or Worse, Record-Setting Kicker Checks In At No. 24

Despite decliing tpast two years, Jake Elliott still has confidence of Eagles.

Long snapper Rick Lovato (left) and kicker Jake Elliott get ready to practice during Week 15. | Ed Kracz/Eagles on SI

And then there were two. That’s how many players remain from the Eagles team that won Super Bowl 52 on a frigid February afternoon in Minnesota in 2018. Many fans wanted that number trimmed to one during the offseason.

They didn’t get their wish, and, for better or worse, ’til death do them part it would seem, Jake Elliott will be back for another year of kicking. The marriage between team and kicker will celebrate year 10 this fall.

Lane Johnson, a mainstay on the top 25 list since it began six years ago, is the other player from the Super Bowl win over the New England Patriots, and he remains one of the best at his position when healthy.

There would only be a divorce between Elliott and the Eagles if the wheels come completely off in training camp, though this long-running kicking operation came close to having just that happen last year, one of the worst in his career.

Steady Decline For Jake Elliott

Jake Elliott practices his field goals during the Eagles' training camp. | Ed Kracz/Eagles on SI

The last two years have gotten steadily worse, and it is reflected in his position on the annual top 25 best current Eagles, per the staff at Philadelphia Eagles on Sports Illustrated. The list was compiled by Jeff Kerr, John McMullen, and Ed Kracz, with each submitting their top 25 to one another and assigning point values, with the lowest number of points getting the higher ranking. A player who didn’t make the top 25 on one of the ballots received 30 points.

Elliott collected 77 points to place him No. 24 on the list. He was No. 22 on Kerr’s list and 25 on Kracz’s list. McMullen didn’t have him in his top 25. Tank Bigsby was revealed on Monday as the 25th-ranked player this year.

Eagles Still Confident

Elliott’s best season was 2023, and he was ranked 12th on the list in 2024, but his decline over two years saw him slip from No. 20 last year to 24. In 2023, he made 93.8 percent of his field goals and missed only one PAT in 46 tries. He was 7-for-8 in field goals 50-yard-plus.

His field goal percentage in 2024 dropped to 77.8, and he was just 1-for-7 in kicks of 50-plus yards. He slipped further last year to a percentage of 74.1, though he was 4-for-8 on 50-plus yarders.

Nevertheless, the Eagles plan is to stick with him, and there is no other kicker listed on the roster.

“Still confident in him,” special team coordinator Michael Clay said this spring. “You could go game by game, situation by situation, but nobody really wants to hear any of that. Everybody wants to know, what have you done for me last? But for Jake, 10 years in the NFL, 10 years to do it in Philadelphia, big kicks, hard to go against a confidence in that.”