A hint for Eagles: Special teams matter

Sunday was about quarterbacks. That much, no one could deny. The NFL's two conference championship games were about Tom Brady and Peyton Manning and their dueling legacies, about Colin Kaepernick and Russell Wilson and the validation of the position's evolution. These were the day's most compelling stories, because in football, the quarterback is always the most compelling story.

Around here, though, the questions foremost on everyone's mind during a championship-game Sunday are usually the same: What can the Eagles learn from this? Where do they need to improve to reach this level? It's practically a tradition. We probe the NFL's four semifinalists for a quality that is an asset for them and a liability for the Eagles. This year, there was an easy answer.

Special teams, of course.

(What, you think the Eagles are going to trade for Brady, Manning, or the Seahawks' entire secondary? Work with me here, people.)

Just as a memory refresher: There were a few reasons the Eagles lost to the New Orleans Saints two weeks ago in the NFC wild-card round, and special teams were at the top of the list. Not only did kicker Alex Henery miss a 48-yard field goal, his kickoff after the Eagles' late, go-ahead touchdown wasn't deep enough to force a touchback. Darren Sproles returned it 39 yards, Cary Williams horse-collared Sproles to tack on 15 more, and the Saints were set up near midfield and on their way to a 26-24 victory.

"All three phases of football are crucial," Williams said, "and it gets magnified once you hit the playoffs."

True enough, but Williams left out a crucial point: Special teams can help a team over a 16-game regular season, too, and often they do so as the hour hand moves on a clock, almost imperceptibly. Granted, it isn't a sexy topic of discussion, not when we can bat around whether Nick Foles is a "franchise quarterback" or which safety the Eagles ought to sign this offseason or whether DeSean Jackson will start cranking out sit-ups in his driveway during training camp. But special teams make a difference, especially in a league where the line between winning and losing is so thin.

That's why Sunday's games and participants are relevant and instructive. The Patriots, the 49ers, and the Seahawks kicked and covered so well this season that they ranked among the league's top four teams in average starting field position and among the top six in opponents' average starting field position, according to the statistical firm Football Outsiders. (The Broncos ranked 17th and 14th in the respective categories, but Manning's remarkable season made up for it.)

The Eagles, by contrast, were 16th this season in average starting field position (27.75), and part of that ranking can be attributed to their so-so kickoff-return team. They collectively averaged fewer than 22 yards per return, and I do mean "collectively": Nine players returned at least one kickoff for them.

Moreover, the Eagles ranked 12th in opponents' starting field position (26.82) primarily because Donnie Jones had the finest season of any punter in franchise history. He set team records with a 40.5 net average and with 33 punts that were downed inside the 20-yard line, and his proficiency counteracted the Eagles' overall inconsistency on kickoffs and coverage. Henery did have 27 touchbacks, ranking 12th in the league, but anyone who saw him lob pooch kick after pooch kick during the Eagles' loss to the Minnesota Vikings on Dec. 15 knows that Chip Kelly didn't believe him capable of booting the football into the end zone consistently.

"A lot of people are now realizing the importance of the punter position and the kicker position," Jones said. "Ten or 15 years ago, it was just a kicker, just a punter. But these guys directly affect field position, and that's huge."

The good news for the Eagles is that they should be able to address some of these issues over the offseason. The benefit of having Foles and his $615,000 base salary is that the franchise already has an effective quarterback who comes cheap, allowing general manager Howie Roseman to shore up the roster's overall depth, which in turn should bolster the coverage and return units. And the Eagles would do well to acquire another kicker who at a minimum could compete with Henery, if not replace him. Kickers aren't nearly as compelling as quarterbacks, but they matter.

Two days after the Eagles' season ended, Henery insisted he wasn't worried about the prospect of losing his job, though he was aware he'd become the ready-made scapegoat for a breakdown that had cost his team a shot at a Super Bowl. He missed just five kicks all season, and over his three years with the Eagles, he has made 86 percent of his field-goal tries. A kicker, he said, can get lost looking at the past. You can't dwell. You move on to the next kick, if there is one.

"I was happy toward the end with how I was hitting the ball," he said. "There were just a few through the year I wasn't happy with."

A few too many, in the end.

@MikeSielski