Eagles still sound like they’re riding with Jake Elliott

Eagles fans looking for a new kicker this offseason might want to stop refreshing Twitter. It does not sound like Jake Elliott is getting replaced.

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Michael Clay was asked about Elliott after two straight seasons of shaky kicking, and the Eagles special teams coordinator did not exactly sound like a man begging Howie Roseman to bring in competition.

“Still confident in him,” Clay said.

There you go. That is probably the story.

Eagles may not move on from Elliot now, but they probably should

Elliott has not been good enough. Nobody needs to pretend otherwise. He has made just 48 of 63 field goals over the past two seasons. That is 76.2 percent, which puts him near the bottom among regular NFL kickers. The longer kicks have been even worse. He is 5-for-15 from 50-plus yards.

That is not a small sample. That is a real problem.

But the Eagles clearly do not see it as a problem worth solving with a replacement. At least not right now.

Clay pointed to Elliott’s full body of work instead of just the last two seasons.

“But for Jake, 10 years in the NFL, 10 years to do it in Philadelphia, big kicks, hard to go against a confidence in that,” Clay said.

That is fair to a point. Elliott has made massive kicks here. He has been through playoff runs, Super Bowls, ugly weather games, hostile road environments, and every weird special teams disaster this fan base has ever lived through. He is not some random kicker the Eagles found in a parking lot.

He is also not cheap.

Elliott signed a four-year, $24 million deal in 2024. He reworked it this offseason, but he still has guaranteed money tied to him. His cap number is $4.65 million this year and $5.17 million in 2027, with a whole lot of dead money attached.

So yeah, the Eagles can talk about confidence all they want. The contract is also doing plenty of talking.

Clay is not wrong for backing his guy publicly. That is his job. He also made it clear the Eagles are not interested in turning this into open season on Elliott.

“Is everybody going to jump on the bandwagon to beat a dead horse? No,” Clay said.

That is probably the right approach inside the building. There is no point in nuking a kicker’s confidence in May. Kicking is mental. Everyone knows it. Once it starts going sideways, it can get ugly fast.

Clay said Elliott needs to get back to his routine and confidence.

“Jake’s going to be his hardest critic of all time,” Clay said. “It’s for me as a coach to bring him up and keep the confidence in him because when he’s confident, a confident kicker is a dangerous kicker.”

That sounds nice. It also has to turn into made kicks.

The Eagles are good enough to be playing real football in January again. This team cannot have games swing because the kicker is broken from 50-plus or shaky on routine attempts. There is too much talent on the roster for that nonsense.

So this is the deal.

Jake Elliott is probably not getting replaced before the season. The Eagles still trust him. Clay still believes in him. His contract makes moving on complicated. His history gives him a longer leash than most kickers would ever get.

But that leash is not endless.

The Eagles are giving Elliott another chance to figure it out. Now he actually has to do it.