Philadelphia Eagles: It’s time to acknowledge Jake Elliott’s poor play

The Philadelphia Eagles aren’t getting their money’s worth with Jake Elliott.

A lot of things went wrong with the Philadelphia Eagles offense during the team’s Week 6 loss to Baltimore. Most noticeably, it seemed like dudes were having a rough time catching wide open passes!

However, due to some late-game Carson Wentz heroics, the Eagles found themselves down just two points late in the fourth quarter. They failed to convert the two-point conversion, and Baltimore happily chewed away the remaining clock after recovering the onside kick. While a lot of people were quick to criticize Doug Pederson for his two-point conversion play call, my mind drifted somewhere else.

Kicker Jake Elliott missed a 52-yard field goal at the end of the first half. Had he made that, the Philadelphia Eagles may have very well won themselves a football game.

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Following the team’s Week 5 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, I presented the idea on Twitter of Elliott not being a very good kicker (shameless Twitter plug: @DavidEsser_), and I was met with some understandable pushback. After all, Elliott is beloved in the city of Philadelphia for his Week 3 heroics back in *checks notes* 2017.

Despite Elliott’s clutch play three years ago, the simple truth is that Elliott has been a pretty below average kicker over the last couple of seasons. He ranked 18th in the league in terms of field goal accuracy in 2017, 20th in 2018, and 13th in 2019. Over his last eleven games, he’s been particularly bad:

Elliott noticeably missed two field goals during the team’s must-win Week 16 game against Dallas  last season, and of course missed a crucial kick against the Steelers this past weekend.

Normally I wouldn’t put a ton of thought into kickers missing field goals, it happens all the time in the NFL. However, the big issue is the fact that Elliott is being paid to play like one of the best kickers in all of football. The $20.1 million extension that he received in November of last year is the third biggest kicker contract in the entire NFL, and Elliott isn’t even close to playing at that type of level.

Forget top three kicker in all football, Elliott might not even be a top 15 kicker in all of football at the moment.

Now this may seem like I’m kicking a man while he’s down, as Elliott has had stretches of consistency in the past. However, in a league driven by analytics and statistics, the numbers point to a player who is being vastly overpaid. Considering the fact that the Eagles are one of the most salary cap-strapped teams in the NFL moving forward, this is simply not a luxury the team can afford.

No-one is signing up to trade for Elliott, particularly given his struggles the last 10+ games or so, and cutting him would create close to $8 million in dead cap. However, the Philadelphia Eagles do have a “potential out” in Elliott’s contract following the 2021 season, where they would only eat $2.3 million in dead cap upon cutting him.

Considering how easy it’s been for teams to find kickers off the street these days, this is an avenue that would benefit Philly quite a bit moving forward.

Elliott will always be remembered for his Week 3 heroics during the 2017 season, and I thank him dearly for the role he played during the team’s Super Bowl run. With that said, the NFL is very much a “what have you done for me lately” league, and if we’re all being 100% honest, Elliott simply hasn’t been good.