Jake Elliott aims to bounce back from an inconsistent season as the Eagles adjust to another rule change
The kicker had his share of hiccups in 2024 but was on target in the Super Bowl. This year, Elliott and the special teams are adjusting to a tweak in the kickoff rule.
After arguably the worst season of his eight-year NFL career, Eagles kicker Jake Elliott went back to the drawing board and … did what he always does.
“It’s the same thing as every offseason, good or bad,” Elliott said Thursday after the sixth practice of Eagles training camp. “You kind of go back to the basics, fundamentals. What are your swing thoughts? How can you build on that and kind of build it from the base back up again?”
Elliott, 30, said he changed his routine a few years ago. He started kicking a little earlier in the offseason but kicks a little bit less. Camp is less about building his leg strength or mechanics back up and more about getting into a rhythm. This year, it also involves trying to continue to build chemistry with new long snapper Charley Hughlett, who replaced Rick Lovato, the team’s primary long snapper for Elliott’s eight seasons with the Eagles.
“It’s been an easy transition, just kind of building chemistry every day, feeling the rhythm of the operation,” Elliott said. “We’ve been working together since OTAs now, so we’ve had a little bit of time.”
Said Hughlett: “I just want to continue the consistency that [Lovato] had. We’re a new unit, and any time you add a new person … it just takes a couple weeks to get there. We had OTAs, and for now it’s just kind of getting those reps in to make everything muscle memory.”
The new operation comes at an interesting time for Elliott, who had an up-and-down season in 2024. He normally is one of the game’s more reliable kickers — he was 30-for-32 on field goal attempts in 2023 — but Elliott’s 77.8% (28 of 36) mark last season was the second-worst of his career, beating a 73.7% mark on 19 attempts in 2020.
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He had a rocky postseason, too. Elliott was 3-for-3 on field goals — all between 30 and 39 yards — in the playoff-opening win over the Green Bay Packers, but he missed an extra point. Then, in the divisional round vs. the Los Angeles Rams during a snowstorm, Elliott missed two more extra points, though he connected on a few crucial kicks to help the Eagles survive. During the regular season, Elliott was 47-for-48 on point-after attempts.
Elliott, however, bounced back from there.
He missed a long field goal in the NFC championship game but was a perfect 7-for-7 on point-after attempts. Then, in the Super Bowl, Elliott made all four of his extra-point attempts and was 4-for-4 on field goals, three of which came from 48 yards or deeper.
Elliott said he maintained the same mentality through it all.
“I’ve always had this one-minute rule, whether it’s a good kick or a bad kick,” he said. “I get a minute to enjoy it or a minute to learn from it and move on as fast as I can. Every kick is just as important, and the next one, obviously, is more important.”
A new snapper isn’t the only change for Elliott during this training camp. For the second consecutive season, Elliott and the special teams are dealing with a rule change on kickoffs. Last year’s implementation of the dynamic kickoff brought a drastic change, and this year, there’s another adjustment with touchbacks now moving from the 30-yard line to the 35-yard line.
There will be more kickoff returns because of it, with the league hoping that the return rate of 32.8% from last season grows larger.
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“Five yards does [make] a difference for the defense,” special teams coordinator Michael Clay said. “In terms of our strategy, that’s the beauty of training camp — you get to work all aspects of special teams.”
Clay said he’ll treat this preseason similarly to last year’s, meaning he planned to watch closely Thursday night in the Hall of Fame game to see the first kickoff coverage of the preseason. The Eagles, of course, will be working plenty with Elliott on all aspects of the kick — from height to power to the best spot to land the ball — as camp rolls on.
“We’re working on it a lot,” Elliott said. “Obviously, there’s going to be a couple different kicks, probably. I think we don’t know what we don’t know yet and how that’s going to play out and kind of seeing what the return teams are going to do. I think we’re going to learn a lot about it in the preseason.”