Top 5 in 2014: Biggest ‘What Ifs?’ in Philadelphia Sports

4.) What if Alex Henery Was Capable of Kicking a Touchback?

Sep 19, 2013; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia Eagles kicker Alex Henery (6) along the sidelines during the second quarter against the Kansas City Chiefs at Lincoln Financial Field. The Chiefs defeated the Eagles 26-16. Mandatory Credit: Howard Smith-USA TODAY Sports

As far as game-day hypotheticals go, there’s nothing that was conjured up more regarding the Eagles brief playoff run than the fact that the offense left the field the final time with a lead over the New Orleans Saints. With just under five minutes left in the fourth quarter, Nick Foles capped off his last drive of the season by hitting Zach Ertz for a go-ahead touchdown to put the Eagles up 24-23. The New Orleans offense, opting to take the air out of the ball all game to neutralize the Eagles uptempo attack, would have to put together a scoring drive late in the game to come away with a road victory.

New Orleans shocked most of us when it became clear that they would lean heavily on their run game rather than Drew Brees and the myriad of weapons their offense presented. They would outrush the Eagles 185-80 when the game was over and kept the ball away from Chip Kelly’s offense for large chunks at a time. That said, all the Eagles had to do was keep the Saints offense from scoring, something they had been able to do through the better part of the fourth quarter, to keep their postseason hopes alive. Unfortunately, their defense would face long odds before even stepping onto the field.

With one of the most dangerous return men in the NFL waiting, now current Eagle Darren Sproles, Alex Henery was unable to do what seems to be a league requirement for kickers in today’s NFL: kick a touchback. Instead, Henery’s weak kick barely breached the New Orleans endzone. Sproles would charge out with a head of steam and gash the Eagles special teams unit for 39 yards before he was brought down by a horse-collar tackle courtesy of Cary Williams, tacking on 15 yards to an already impressive return.

Starting in Philadelphia territory, the Saints were allowed to continue their strategy of pounding the ball at a tired Eagles defense while bleeding the remaining 4:44 of regulation. When it was all said and done, Shayne Graham was able to kick a game-winning field goal from the Philadelphia 14 yard line with no time left on the clock, and the Saints left Lincoln Financial Field with a 26-24 victory.

Had New Orleans been forced to start from their own 20 yard line, they would have had to alter their offensive approach to account for the fact that they needed roughly 50 yards of offense to even sniff Graham’s field goal range. This would have meant switching over to the pass game which, though it might sound crazy given the secondary’s struggles this past season, favored the Eagles on this night. Drew Brees had already thrown a pair of interceptions and didn’t seem to establish the sort of rhythm he showed when he was at his best. New Orleans was living and dying by the run on this night and had they been forced to scrap that gameplan for one crucial drive, it’s quite possible the Eagles defense could have come up with the stand they needed.

Drew Brees is one of the great quarterbacks of the generation, but he was then and is now far from the player he was earlier in his career. Given his struggles throughout the contest leading up to this point, it would not have been a safe bet to assume he would have been able to march that distance to set his team up in field goal range for  a rather run-of-the-mill kicker in Shayne Graham. Instead, Alex Henery’s weak kick never gave his team a chance and his inability to do something any scrub kicker off the scrap heap seems capable of put the Eagles squarely behind the eight-ball. A playoff win in year one following an NFC East title would drastically alter the narrative of Chip Kelly even with the team missing the postseason this past year. Instead, we are where we’re at with the Eagles.