Jake Elliott Gets His Kicks with No. 4 as Countdown to Kickoff reaches 4 Days
The closer the Eagles get to opening day, the less accomplished the uniform numbers seem to get.
That may be the case in quantity, but not always in quality, however. Take No. 4, for instance.
There is no choice since that is the number of days left until the Eagles open the regular season against Washington, but the top spot goes to one of the better kickers in Eagles history.
Not the best, but might be getting there, and that is Jake Elliott, who signed a five-year contract extension in the fall of 2019.
He has kicked the longest regular-season field goal in team history, doing it against the New York Giants that won the game as time expired in 2017. It was a kick that gave the Eagles some momentum early in a season that everybody knows how it turned out by now.
Elliott has kicked the longest playoff field goal in team history as well, connecting from 53 yards out in a narrow win against Atlanta in the first playoff game of the Eagles’ run to a Super Bowl title.
There’s more: Elliott kicked five field goals of 50-plus yards in 2017, which is the most in a single season, has seven game-winning field goals, and is tied for fifth-most 40-plus yard field goals (38) in the NFL since 2017.
And to think, he could still be with the Bengals, who drafted him in the fifth-round in 2017. An injury to Caleb Sturgis, however, forced the Eagles to look for another kicker and Elliott is who they found, poaching him off the practice squad of Cincinnati.
Here’s the rest of number 4:
3. Tom Hutton. Hutton was the Eagles’ punter for four seasons, from 1995-98, while also doing some kickoff duty.
He averaged 42.4 yards on 349 punts while in Philadelphia and had 77 of his kicks downed inside the 20-yard line.
Hutton lasted only one more year in the league after leaving the Eagles, going to Miami for the 1999 season.
2. Max Runager. The Eagles employed some pretty good punters through the years, and Runager is no exception. He punted on two Super Bowl teams – the 1980 Eagles and the 1984 49ers. Drafted in the eighth-round back in 1979, Runager spent 1979-1983 with the Eagles then returned for his 12th and final season in the NFL in 1989.
Runager still has the fifth-most punts in Eagles history with 332 all-time, averaging 39.9 yards per punt.
1. Jake Elliott. See above.
Runner-up:
Kevin Kolb. The road to the Eagles’ starting quarterback job was paved after Donovan McNabb was traded heading into the 2010 season, but Kolb suffered a concussion in week one and his job went to Michael Vick. Kolb would later fill in for an injured Vick, going 2-3 in five starts in 2010, but was back to a back-up role when Vick returned.
The former second-round pick of Philadelphia (No. 36 overall in 2007) was traded to Arizona, where he lasted just two more seasons. In four years with the Eagled, he started just seven games.
Others: Benji Dial, David Jacobs, Dale Dawson, Bryan Barker, Mike McMahon, and Stephen Morris.
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