Rookie Eagles kicker almost never laced up his cleats
BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — One of them might win Super Bowl LII with one swing of his leg Sunday night.
Or he might lose it.
One has carved out one of the great NFL careers of rare sustained excellence as a kicker, with an 87.6-percent success rate on 388 career field-goal attempts and 99-percent on 599 extra points. The other is a neophyte, at the early stage of his NFL journey.
Both kickers played their college ball at the University of Memphis, 11 years apart. Eagles rookie kicker Jake Elliott, 23, broke the Memphis records of Patriots 12-year veteran Stephen Gostkowski, 34.
Other than their ages, the most glaring difference between the two is the path each took to get to this moment.
Gostkowski always dreamed of being an NFL kicker.
Elliott, an accomplished tennis player as a youth who never cared much about football, dreamed of being Lleyton Hewitt.
“The kicking for me was a real shot-in-the-dark, lucky situation for me,’’ Elliott told The Post. “My freshman year of high school, I got picked out of a crowd at a homecoming pep rally to do a kicking contest. I went out there and hit a few through and the varsity coach came up to me, which was kind of humbling, and said, ‘Hey you should really think about coming out for the team.’
“I said, ‘Um, I’m not really a big football guy,’ and I kind of brushed it off.’’
Elliott was on his way to becoming a pretty accomplished tennis player, and that’s where his sports passion stood.
“A couple years after that kicking contest, as a junior, I was on the tennis court training and it was a week or two before the football season was about to start and they were struggling a little bit with their kicking,’’ Elliott said. “One of the coaches ran over and grabbed me and had me come out and kick and few and said, ‘Come back tomorrow if you want to play.’ I figured I’d give it a shot.’’
And here he is, just seven years after putting on a football uniform for the first time, kicking in a Super Bowl.
Jason Brauer was that assistant coach at Lyons Township High School in La Grange, Ill., who coaxed Elliott from the tennis court to the football field.
“I walked over to the tennis courts and I said, ‘I promise this’ll be the last time I ask you: We’re really struggling to make kicks right now and have a chance to have a pretty good team. Any chance to you come over to kick for us?’ ’’ Brauer told The Post by phone. “He put down his tennis racket and came out to the field in his tennis shoes and started kicking for us. The next day he was at practice and never looked back.
“It really is kind of a fairy tale story. Every little boy who’s played football growing up dreams of playing in a Super Bowl, and for Jake to be able to do that in his seventh year of football, kicking on the biggest stage of his career … it is a little bit surreal.’’
When you speak to Elliott, he comes across so even-keeled it doesn’t seem like much of anything fazes him, which could serve him well kicking in the enormity of this Super Bowl moment.
Giants fans will recall Elliott driving a stake into their miserable season when he kicked a 61-yard field goal to beat them on the final play of the game in Week 3.
“That whole thing was pretty surreal,’’ Elliott said. “That was only the second week in the NFL for me, and having that opportunity was pretty crazy.’’
Adding to the lore of Elliott’s story is the fact he was drafted by the Bengals in the fifth round, lost a training-camp competition to veteran Randy Bullock and was signed by the Eagles off Cincinnati’s practice squad following the first week of the season to replace the injured Caleb Sturgis.
It’s a lesson in you-never-know.
“I’m very happy for Jake,’’ said Gostkowski, who has mentored Elliott with advice over the years. “I wish him the best, but I hope his team loses Sunday.’’
Much the way Elliott has been inspired by Gostkowski, Gostkowski recalled being in college watching Adam Vinatieri kick game-winning field goals for the Patriots.
“There are not many ways to garner respect at our position other than making big kicks and being consistent over a long period of time,’’ Gostkowski said. “[Vinatieri] has obviously made our position a lot more valuable to be able to make big kicks like that and show that you can be a weapon. Kickers are either weapons or liabilities, and you definitely want to be looked at as a weapon.’’
In Sunday’s game, the Patriots and Eagles will have weapons at the kicking position.
Based on the fact that the seven Super Bowls the Patriots have played under Bill Belichick have been decided by a total of 26 points, with none more than a six-point margin, the chances are fairly good that Super Bowl LII could be decided by a field goal from either Gostkowski or Elliott.