Eagles opposing player to stop, Week 17 edition.
There was an underlying problem the Eagles faced last Sunday in their last-second 36-33 loss to the Washington Commanders that will loom even larger this week, when the Eagles host the Dallas Cowboys at 1 p.m. at Lincoln Financial Field: Field position.
It gave Washington a short field in which to work off, with the Commanders’ average starting field position after kickoffs being the 40-yard line (being specific the 38.3-yard line), while the NFL average this season has been almost 10 yards back, at the 30-yard line.
In the Cowboys’ KaVontae Turpin, the Eagles will be facing the most dangerous kick returner in the NFL. Turpin leads the NFL in kick returns, with 826 yards, for an NFL-high average of 34.4 yards on 24 kickoff returns, and as a team, Dallas is No. 2 in the NFL, behind Washington (1,053) in return yards with 1,031, while leading the NFL in average kick return yards (32.7/per return).
Last Sunday, punter/kickoff specialist Braden Mann’s kicks were, in a word, horrible. He failed to reach the end zone and Luke McCaffrey had returns of 29 and 47 yards, the latter came in the first quarter to the Eagles’ 43-yard line and the former led to Washington’s game-winning touchdown, when McCaffrey brought the ball out to the Commanders’ 38 with the help of Sydney Brown’s special teams’ penalty.
“I guess I’ll start off by saying we didn’t play well enough, special-teams wise, especially in the coverage phase, primarily on kickoff coverage,” said Eagles’ special teams coordinator Michael Clay in addressing the media on Tuesday. “We put our defense in terrible situations. One, starting off the game with a penalty. Not what our standard is and then coming back and letting them have a big return. So again, just for us, from a special teams standpoint, there had been some good instances in that game, but overall, wasn’t up to our standard.”
When asked if the lack of depth on kickoffs or with the actual coverage, Clay said, “I think it was a mixture of both. Obviously we like a little bit more distance on our kickoffs. We can’t have a ball land at the 16, 15-yard line. But it’s never always on one person. There are 11 guys out there. And first of all, it starts with me at the top. I have to get these guys far more prepared in terms of getting off blocks. Again, kickoff coverage is very similar to defense. You can make up for a mistake by hustling to the ball and just playing with some fundamentals of block destruction. I don’t think we did a good enough job of getting off blocks. So again, it all encompasses, you know, the entirety of the kickoff coverage unit.”
Clay, however, was not about to switch out Mann for Jake Elliott. Clay put some of the short kickoffs on the 20-degree weather last Sunday, and some on Mann, who has been good on kickoffs this season. The Eagles, Clay did admit, did not get off blocks nor tackle well against Washington.
The Eagles cannot afford any miscues against Turpin—a blatant fact Clay is well aware of.
“We got to be better,” he admitted, “especially as we’re ending this regular season and getting into playoff football-time mode, especially going against Dallas. We all know KaVontae Turpin is a dangerous returner, but not up to our standards when we played against Washington.”