Why Eagles Should Have Brought In Competition For Jake Elliott

Things always move quickly in the NFL.

As late as the 2023 season, Jake Elliott was arguably the best placekicker in the NFL, a burgeoning franchise legend who first came to prominence after he kickstarted the Eagles’ run to the franchise’s first Super Bowl championship with a monster 61-yard game-winning kick over the New York Giants as a rookie.

In the ensuing years, long-distance kicks have become more commonplace in the NFL just as Elliott, 31, has dropped off from a production standpoint.

The veteran kicker is coming off one of the worst seasons of his career, making just 20 of 27 field-goal attempts, a 71.4% clip that ranked near the bottom of the NFL.

It was also the second-worst field-goal percentage of Elliott’s first nine seasons and he's been particularly ineffective from long range just as there has been that explosion of 50-plus makes around the league.

From 2021 to 2023, Elliott connected on15 of 17 FGs from 50-or-more yards. Over the past two seasons, he's made only 5 of 15 from that distance.

Elliott also missed an important extra point in the Eagles’ 23-19 wild-card loss to the San Francisco 49ers in January.

In some cities that would be enough to move on but the Eagles are staying the course after reworking Elliott’s contract in a give-and-take fashion.

One of the highest-paid kickers in the NFL, Elliott agreed to take a $1 million pay cut in exchange for a fully guaranteed $5 million in 2026, a clear signal the veteran would get his 10th opportunity to be the Eagles kicker, which has only been further emphasized with no competition brought in.

Clutch Gene

Elliott has earned Howie Roseman’s trust by kicking in eight different postseasons, three Super Bowls and the only two Lombardi Trophy-winning seasons in the organization’s history, all while exhibiting the mythical “clutch gene.”

In a very large sample size of 16 playoff games, Elliott has made 28 of 29 FGs, a gaudy 96.6%. Nine of those makes came in the Eagles' three Super Bowl appearances.

In the Eagles' Super Bowl LIX win over Kansas City, Elliott tied a Super Bowl record with four FGs and surpassed Don Chandler's 57-year-old record for the most points (15) in the big game with 16.

"I think that Jake has been a tremendous kicker for us since we got him off the practice squad in Cincinnati in 2017," Roseman said this offseason. "Tremendously clutch. Have a lot of confidence in him as a player, as a kicker, as a person, a captain on our team and continue to believe in him as our placekicker."

Now the Eagles will push back that there is no competition when specialists are “running unopposed.” The belief is that the next option is a phone call away if the production-level is not up to snuff.

Almost certainly Elliott has to be on a shorter leash this time around. However, there is something to the idea of being pushed in practice every day by another player with boots on the ground even if the competition is nominal.

Especially for someone like Elliott, a jack of all trades as an athlete who has a very competitive streak. Whether he’s playing golf, table tennis or softball Elliott is known as a killer in the Eagles’ locker room and recently defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, a pretty solid golfer, joked on “Exciting Mics: he wants nothing to do with Elliott on the links.

A daily competition would only help Elliott to regain his consistent stroke on the football field.

The Eagles did take a look at former Marshall and North Carolina kicker Rece Verhoff as a tryout player during rookie camp but decided not to bring him in.

With rosters 90 deep at this time of the year, Verhoff might be more valuable as an obstacle for Elliott than a third-team player at a more populous position.

"With Jake, obviously long career, still confident in him," special teams coordinator Michael Clay said. "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."

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