Five Big-Picture Takeaways From Eagles Week 4 Loss to Redskins

3.) Back to the Drawing Board for Parkey’s replacement?

When a team playing the Washington Redskins comes up on the wrong side of the ‘whose special teams unit stood out more?’ question, it was a rough showing. With Cody Parkey out for the season, the Eagles brought in Caleb Sturgis to handle kickoff and field goal duties. Sturgis was adequate in the kickoff department. (In today’s NFL, there’s no reason every kickoff shouldn’t be a touchback). His struggles in place-kicking were a whole story altogether. One has to wonder what it is Chip Kelly saw when Sturgis came out on top of the team’s kicker tryout.

The two missed tries by Sturgis both came from 33 yards out. A missed field goal just before halftime took some of the gusto out of the Eagles’ most promising drive of the afternoon to that point. A failed extra point after Riley Cooper’s 62-yard touchdown was a slight black eye on the team’s most exciting play of the game. Sturgis did not miss again on his remaining two extra point tries but left four free points on the board. Sure enough the Redskins won the game by three.

The Steelers showed first hand how to handle a kicker that costs a team wins. Josh Scobee was acquired via trade by Pittsburgh, but his brutal Thursday night performance against the Ravens made keeping him an indefensible option. Eagles fans were spoiled with Parkey last year. A young, accurate kicker with a strong leg is an extremely valuable asset in this league. It was only a matter of time before they realized what not having that luxury in 2015 would mean in terms of wins and losses. As it stands, two of the three Eagles losses this season have come in games where kickers have missed borderline routine kicks. It should surprise no one to see another collection of kickers roll through NovaCare on Monday as the search for Parkey’s replacement continues.