A few thoughts on the Birds as of right now, as well as tomorrow's game:
Is Jake Elliott the best kicker in Eagles history? Elliott is, as we know, on a ridiculous tear that has him as a legitimate candidate for team MVP after four games. Take a quick look at all the Eagles kickers throughout history, and it quickly becomes apparent that the only real competition that Chicken Little has is Birds legend David Akers. Who was the better player for Philadelphia? To answer that question really demands that you determine a way of comparing players who played in different eras, a notoriously difficult task in football. The best way that I've heard is to simply compare how much better each player was than their peers, and one of the best ways to do that for kickers is a stat that I developed called Kicking Points Above Expectation. Here's the basics: figure the rough likelihood (as a percentage) that a player will convert a kick and multiply that percentage by the total points that could be scored on that kick to determine the Expected Points on that play. Add up the total EP for a given season, and subtract that number from the actual points scored by the player in that season to get the result. Naturally, a positive score indicates a season that was better than the league average. By this measure, Akers has (to this point) been the superior player, with a cumulative career KPAE of 22.45 (ignores the seasons that he spent with Washington, SF and Detroit). Elliott has so far achieved a total of 6.14. This is no indictment on Elliot; Akers was simply one of the best three or four kickers in the NFL during his time here (five All Pro nods in twelve seasons in Philly). Here's the table showing year-by-year results:
David Akers | | Jake Elliott | |
SEASON | KPAE | SEASON | KPAE |
1999 | -1.50 | 2017 | 2.13 |
2000 | 5.94 | 2018 | -1.73 |
2001 | 6.24 | 2019 | 1.66 |
2002 | 8.52 | 2020 | -5.50 |
2003 | 4.06 | 2021 | 5.77 |
2004 | 7.46 | 2022 | 0.95 |
2005 | -2.02 | 2023 | 2.86 |
2006 | -4.72 | | |
2007 | -8.19 | | |
2008 | -3.39 | | |
2009 | 3.95 | | |
2010 | 6.11 | | |
TOTAL KPAE | 22.45 | TOTAL KPAE | 6.14 |
KPAE / SEASON | 1.87 | KPAE / SEASON | 0.99 |
KPAE / GAME | 0.12 | KPAE / GAME | 0.06 |
While Elliott's performance in big moments will naturally and justifiably endear him to Eagles fans, Akers' long term track record stands as superior for the time being. It's worth noting that Elliott is on a killer pace so far this season; should he keep it up it might end up being one of the finest kicking seasons in NFL history.
Jalen Hurts progress tracker. I've been down on Hurts so far this year but his performance compared to the league as a whole has definitely improved. After the first couple games you would have been hard pressed to find any QB stat in which Hurts even rated in the top 20 leaguewide. here's where he stands today in several key measures:
ANY/A: 15th
QBR: 17th
Passer Rating: 15th
PFF: 15th
Still not the top ten player we expected, but better than where he started. He's trending in the right direction. The offense as a whole has been really solid; they rank in the top five in plenty of major categories, and in the top ten in pretty much all of the rest.
A brief defense of Nick Sirianni. I was hard on Nick for accepting that penalty, a decision that ultimately helped Washington score a touchdown. The decision that he got the most flak for, however, was one that I think was more defensible. We're talking, of course, about allowing the pass that AJ Brown scored on. Most commentators seemed to think that Philly should have run the clock down and let Jake Elliott decide the outcome. I think there's some good sense behind pursuing the touchdown; here's my reasoning:
Jake Elliot has hit 84.3% of his field goals in the 40-49 yard range. A miss would have taken the game to overtime, the result that the Eagles were trying to avoid.
Mike Sando pointed this out in his Pick Six column: "Since 2000, NFL teams had scored 15 touchdowns in 133 drives (11.3 percent) when trailing by 4-8 points, possessing one or fewer timeouts and starting their drives 60-70 yards away from the opposing goal line". Historically speaking, this gives Philly an 88.7% shot of avoiding overtime by scoring a touchdown.
88.7% > 84.3%. It's a small difference, but based on history the Eagles gave themselves a better shot at winning by grabbing the touchdown when they did. Really, the odds were probably even better than this; Philly's defense was built to stop a team like Washington in that scenario (monster DL playing a shaky OL and inexperienced QB). The real shame is that they failed to shut them down with the game on the line.
The bigger end-of-game goof that I saw was the Commanders passing on the two-point conversion, which was absolutely the wrong call for them and I think cost them the game.
Eagles in for challenge this weekend. I have to confess that I don't have a good feeling about this game. Perhaps our struggles against the Commanders have ruined my confidence in the Eagles' defense, but the simple truth is that Matthew Stafford may represent the most competent QB that the Birds have faced so far and he'll get Cooper Kupp back this weekend. Philly's hopes depend on avoiding turnovers and getting their pass rush going, as LA's OL isn't the unit it once was.
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