Since Chip Kelly has been in Philly, he hasn't been one to make many excuses, but that's kinda what he did yesterday speaking in front of reporters in his day-after-game press conference Monday afternoon. A reporter rightfully noted that the Eagles were not making key plays late in games, and wondered if and how that could be changed.
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"You just keep practicing and you keep working on it and you trust the guys you have," said Kelly. "We know we have the right players here. We just-- it's a play here or a play there. We've lost a game by two and we've lost a game by three. We lost another game by ten; we've lost three games by 15 points.
"You hit two kicks and we are sitting here 3-1 and everybody's happy. There's no difference, it's that you either make plays or you don't make plays. And if you're not making plays, you have to continue to work on them so you can make the plays."
In regard to his point about missed kicks, Kelly's logic here seems to be that if Cody Parkey hit a 44 yard field goal in the fourth quarter against the Falcons, the final score would have been 27-26 Eagles instead of 26-24 Falcons. And I suppose that if newcomer Caleb Sturgis didn't miss a field goal and PAT attempt against Washington, the Eagles would have had four more points, and thus the final would have been 24-23 Eagles instead of 23-20 Washington.
That is beyond ridiculous.
To begin, against Atlanta, Parkey missed his FG attempt with 2:32 left to play. On the ensuing Atlanta drive, the Falcons were in "make them use their timeouts and bleed clock" mode, as they ran the ball three straight times into the line and punted. Had Parkey made his FG, I'm pretty sure Atlanta's approach on offense would have been to try to drive down and hit a game winning FG of their own, and they would have had plenty of time (with all three timeouts) to do it. Kelly chalking up a win here for the Eagles if that kick is made is utter nonsense.
Meanwhile, in Washington, Sturgis missed his FG attempt in the second quarter. He missed his PAT on the first drive of the second half, with 12:16 left in the third quarter. The game is strategically played accordingly thereafter. For example, if you were to just give the Eagles four extra points on Washington's final drive, the score would have been 24-16. After Washington scored, would they have just said, "Alright, let's kick the extra point instead of going for two, shake their hands on a game well played and go get a snack?"
So no, the Eagles would not definitively be 3-1 instead of 1-3 had their kickers been perfect so far this season. And based on what we've seen from the Eagles in big moments, there's a pretty good chance they would have found a way to lose anyway.
The notion that the Eagles only lost by 15 combined points in three games is equally troubling. Frankly, it doesn't matter whether they lost by 1, 5, or 80. What matters is that the Eagles' offense has been horrendous this season.
The Eagles are gaining 294 yards per game. They're gaining 4.9 yards per play. They're getting 18 first downs per game. They're 29th in all three of those stats, and they're scoring less than 20 points per game.
No intelligent fan would be happy with the way the Eagles have played even if they had stolen a couple extra undeserved wins. This is a fan base, after all, that watched the Eagles luck into a 3-1 record in 2012 before losing 11 of their final 12 games.
Don't blame the freaking kickers.
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