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Not Surprisingly, the Eagles are Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel in Every Meaningful Return Category
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If you watched Sunday’s Eagles game with two working eyeballs, you saw how much trouble they had fielding kickoffs. John Metchie, Tank Bigsby, Clayton Bigsby – didn’t really matter who was out there. It looked like they were trying to catch a greased ball on a hockey rink.
Not surprisingly, the data matches the failed eye test, with the Eagles’ special teams putting up these stats through three games:
- 15.6 yards kick return average (dead last)
- 26 yards kick return long (dead last)
- 156 kick return yards (dead last)
- 28.2 yard line average starting field position (27th)
- 25.1 yard line average starting field position from kickoffs only (31st)
- -3.3 average starting field position differential (31st)
Further context here, the punt return data is negligible. They’ve only actually returned one punt, which went for 14 yards. Five others have been caught for fair catches, which is tied for third-most in the league.
The reason the differential isn’t higher, despite being 31st in receiving, is because the kickoff team is just as good as the return team is bad. The Birds’ are currently posting a 27.7 opponent average starting field position number on kickoffs only, which is sixth-best across the league. The median differential number is -0.7, so if they field some kicks cleanly and move the return average up by even two yards, they’d be close to the middle of the pack.
In 2024, for contrast, they posted a +0.9 differential and their average starting position from kickoffs was the 30.1 yard line, which was 16th. They won the Super Bowl with league average kick return numbers.
Special Teams Coordinator Michael Clay speaks this week, so it should be an interesting presser. His are normally boring, but there’s plenty to talk about after that Sunday performance.
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Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com