Elliott delivers perfect ending
PHILADELPHIA >> The job was done, so far as Malcolm Jenkins was concerned. Given two minutes, two timeouts and a shot to the chest that knocked him out for one play, Nick Foles had still managed to drive the Eagles to the Houston Texans’ 17-yard line with three seconds remaining to play.
Game was over. At least that’s the way Jenkins saw it.
“Everybody’s freaking out there,” Jenkins said Sunday. “They’re making a big deal of it . ... Hey, it’s a PAT. It’s on the 17-yard line. You don’t do anything when it’s a PAT in the first quarter, so why do anything different (then)? It’s the same ball, the same length, same everything.
“Obviously there’s a little bit more on the line, but ... I just sat on the bench and watched it. I figured that we got close, and he’ll make the field goal. Like he always does.”
True to his teammate’s faithful thoughts, Jake Elliott promptly stepped into his leg swing and drilled a 35-yard field goal right down the middle, thereby giving the Eagles a 32-30 win over the Texans at Lincoln Financial Field.
It also gave the Eagles, nearly given up for dead a couple of clock minutes earlier, renewed postseason hopes. They will go to Washington next weekend looking for a win and a Minnesota Vikings loss in Chicago, a combination that would put the defending Super Bowl champions into the playoffs.
Not as easy as a 35-yard extra point-sized field goal, perhaps, but not a stretch, either.
“It’s not different,” Jenkins continued. “He makes a ton of PATs, whether it’s in practice or a game. You can miss one. But their guy missed one, too . ... Nothing I can control. That pressure’s on him. But I’m not going to add to the pressure by doing all the antics on the sideline.”
That would be the arms locked, fingers crossed, tears running, silently screaming reactions of his teammates and about 69,696 fans as Elliott lined up a potential make-or-break season. To Jenkins and one other guy, however, it was no big deal.
The other guy being Elliott, of course.
“Nah, I try not to think about too much, really not at all,” Elliott said, describing the moment. “Just about what the kick is and what the task is at hand. I mean, obviously it’s a big one. It’s a little bigger than normal, with kind of the season on the line there. So you just go back to your basics; try to hit a good ball.