Can the Eagles count on Jake Elliott in the Super Bowl? A deep dive into the Eagles kicker.

The Philadelphia Eagles have the most talented roster in the NFL, and it shows. The glaring problem this year is Jake Elliott, who has been terrific for most of his eight seasons with the Eagles.

In his career, he’s 218-of-254 with field goals (86%) and 350-of-368 with extra points (95%).

Unfortunately, his 2024 season has been pretty rough. He’s only 34-of-43 with field goals (79%) and 56-of-60 with extra points (93%). Those misses haven’t necessarily been super costly, but they’ve put the team in much more difficult spots than they need to be. In the Super Bowl, misses can swing the game; against the Chiefs, misses can be deadly.

What happened in Jake Elliott's misses?

Being a kicker has to be terrible. If they miss, it’s clearly on them and points are automatically taken off the board. If they make the kicks that aren’t outstanding (and most aren’t), they get a pat on the head. 

Because of that, kickers are a different breed. There’s a whole mental aspect — immense pressure, being surrounded by guys twice their size — mixed with the physical kicking of the ball and the routineness of their movement. It’s wild.

For Elliott's misses, I’m looking at the game situation, the level of pressure he was probably feeling, the temperature, the wind and its direction, whether or not there was precipitation, and his body language during and after the kick. I’m not looking at the contact with the ball or holds because it’d be disingenuous to pretend I can analyze that. It seems like Braden Mann has been doing a pretty good job holding the ball, and also, I don’t know a whole lot about the holding process other than just ‘laces out.’ 

If you like tables, here’s one with all the information. I go into context for each miss below.

All of the historical weather information is coming from Weather Underground.

Week 3 at New Orleans

It was a 60-yard kick from the right hash in the fourth quarter and the Eagles were leading by one point. That’s a decent amount of pressure.

On one hand, this is the most problematic miss of Elliott’s season because this is the same stadium where the Super Bowl is being played. On the other hand, this is the least problematic miss because it was so long ago and it was his longest attempt of the season.

Regardless, it was still a miss. 

This was in an indoor stadium so there was no wind, but Elliott missed wide right by a whole lot and it was short too. Granted, Elliott was literally kicking from the 50-yard line, but still. It wasn’t good. You could see from his body language that he didn’t think this one really stood a chance. 

Week 6 vs Cleveland

This was a 57-yard kick from the middle of the field with 25 seconds left in the first half, and the Eagles were leading by one point. Again, it’s fair to say that there’s a decent amount of pressure to make this kick. 

You can throw this one out because it was blocked. Sometimes you can say. ‘Well was the kick low? Low trajectory kicks get blocked,’ and that’s fair… but this one was blocked by Myles Garrett. He’s a freak of nature.

Garrett jumped over both Rick Lovato and Tyler Steen to get in the backfield. When a guy does that, you have to tip your hat to him. If the kick’s trajectory was perfect it wouldn’t have mattered.

Week 9 vs Jacksonville

This was a 57-yard kick from the middle of the field with 2:16 left in the second quarter and the Eagles were leading by five points. Given the distance and the time left on the clock, you have to imagine Jake was feeling some pressure. 

It was 52 degrees and the wind was six miles per hour coming from the East Northeast. That’s nothing crazy, and he was kicking into the southern end zone, so it was pretty much at his back.

He doinked this off the right upright. It’s hard to imagine kicking with a weaker wind really impacted the kick that much, but if it did, the way this kick missed makes sense. 

As you would expect with a doink, he looked hopefully the whole way just until it made the ‘BWONG’ noise. 

Week 11 vs. Washington

This was a bad game. In this one, Elliott missed three kicks: an extra point (33 yards), a 44-yarder, and a 51-yarder. Woof.

For the 44-yard field goal, it was kicked from the left hash with 9:59 left in the first quarter. The game was tied at zero, so there wasn’t a whole lot of pressure. 

It was 45 degrees and he was kicking into a nine MPH northeastern wind. Those aren’t terrible conditions, but he did miss wide left which means the wind maybe could have affected this. With a kick that short and that mild of a breeze, it probably didn’t.

He looked bad too. He did the palms up, ‘What the hell was that?’ thing after he kicked it. That’s not good body language, which makes sense because this was his shortest miss up to this point.

The 51-yarder came from the right hash with 11:40 left in the second quarter and the Eagles were down by seven points. There’s still a lot of time left there, but the Eagles were down and Jake had already missed a field goal. It would make sense that Elliott felt more pressure than there really was on this kick.

He was kicking into the southern end zone on this one, so he had the wind at his back. He missed wide left again on this one. From his body language, you could tell that he knew this one never stood a chance. 

This was the first extra point that he missed in the season. He was kicking into the southern end zone, and for the third time in the game, he missed wide left. You can clearly see that he says something after the kick. Probably ‘Gosh darn’ or ‘Poop.’ Whatever it was, he had some really bad vibes.

Week 14 vs. Carolina

In this game, Elliott missed a 52-yard field goal from the right hash with 10:47 left in the third quarter when the Eagles were up by four. It was the first drive coming out of the half, and the offense did score on their drive going into the half, so there probably wasn’t a whole lot of pressure on him.

It was 59 degrees with a 16 MPH western wind with 35 MPH gusts, and he was kicking into the southern end zone. Even with a wind going from his right to his left, he still missed right. Maybe the wind was swirling in the end zone, and maybe it wasn’t. Regardless, it looked like he was trying to compensate and he did it a little too much because this one didn’t stand a chance and he knew it. 

Week 16 at Washington

Hyper-specific stat alert: This miss was Elliott’s only miss at an outdoor stadium in an away game that was only short (the Saints one was also wide).

It was a 56-yarder from the right hash four seconds left before halftime and the Eagles were up by seven. They were going to get the ball back coming out of halftime so there probably wasn’t a whole lot of pressure here. 

It was 35 degrees with a nine MPH wind coming from the north, which means the wind was coming from the right to the left. Not that it really mattered, because again, he didn’t have enough leg on it. 

As you would expect from a guy who rarely misses short, he watched that thing the entire way thinking it would go in.

Week 18 vs. New York Giants

This one was a 39-yarder from the left hash with 14:10 in the second quarter while the Eagles were up by seven. It was a meaningless game being played by backups, so there couldn’t have been less pressure. 

It was 31 degrees outside with a 17 MPH wind and 25 MPH gusts coming from the west. He was kicking for the south, so that means it was going right to left. It seems like the wind might’ve gotten a hold of the ball because he ended up missing wide left and did the palms-up thing again because he probably thought he had it (which he should’ve).

Wild Card Round vs. Green Bay

Elliott missed his second extra point of the season with 3:20 left in the third quarter. It would’ve extended the lead to 14 points. Typically you think with that kind of a lead and a kick that late into the game, there would be no pressure, but it was a playoff game. 

It was 41 degrees and there was a five MPH wind coming from the west-northwest. Jake was kicking into the northern end zone so it was pretty much a left-to-right breeze. He ended up missing wide left by a tiny little bit and he thought he had it the whole time. So did Fred Johnson, who put his arms up like the kick was good as he turned around, which was kind of funny. 

Divisional Round vs. Los Angeles Rams

The weather this game was incredibly wonky and Elliott missed two extra points, but one was before the snow/hail/wintery mix from hell really started coming down.

It came on the Eagles opening drive touchdown, so there was 11:55 left in the first quarter. Given the game, there was pressure. 

At the time, it was 34 degrees with a ten MPH wind coming from the north. Elliott was kicking with the wind into the southern end zone but missed wide left. He knew that it didn’t have it pretty much from the get-go. Slumped shoulders, floppy arms, bad body language.

The second missed extra point came with 4:36 left in the game when everything was terrible. It was 29 degrees with an 18 MPH wind and 26 MPH gusts coming from the north. Elliott was kicking into the south endzone, so again, he had the wind at his back and missed wide left. That being said, it’s hard to blame the guy when all the snow and stuff was dumping on him.

NFC Championship Game vs. Washington

This was a 54-yarder from the left hash with 14:10 left in the second quarter while the Eagles were up by eight points. He had missed the most field goal against the Commanders this season, and it was the game to make it to the Super Bowl. There was definitely pressure, regardless of the situation in the actual game. 

It was 42 degrees with a 10 MPH wind coming from the west-northwest. Elliott was kicking into the southern end zone, so it was coming from behind him and from his right to his left. He ended up missing wide right though, so it might have been another thing where he was trying to compensate, but who knows? Even though he had been having a terrible season with 50+ yard kicks, he still looked confident and hopeful that it was going to go in. 

All in all, seven of Elliott’s 10 misses (that have had enough leg) have been wide left, so at least he’s consistently missing. Typically, you would hope that’s something that’s fixed by now, but here we are.

Fortunately, he has made all eight of his extra points and six of his seven field goals in indoor stadiums this season. Unfortunately, that one missed field goal was in New Orleans.

Nothing is going to make you think that Elliott will be automatic in the Super Bowl, but at least he’s trending well when there’s no weather. Fingers crossed for our guy; he’s done well in big spots before, let’s just hope he can keep it together for one more game.