Carson Wentz was praying.
Malcolm Jenkins was keeping an eye on Odell Beckham Jr., worried about the prospect of the superstar getting his hands on the football one last time with offensive linemen trying to tackle him.
And Donnie Jones, the veteran punter and field goal holder, was on the sideline lobbying head coach Doug Pederson and special teams coordinator Dave Fipp to let them try.
"I went over and said 'Let's go," Jones recalled. "We can win this thing. I said let's kick this bleep-bleeper and win this game."
A couple minutes later, rookie kicker Jake Elliott exited the field at the Linc in style, hoisted up on the shoulders of Mychal Kendricks and Kamu Grugier-Hill.
That's the kind of treatment you get when you drill a 61-yard, game-winning field goal.
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"Jake came up and I saw it in his eyes," Jones said. "I knew. I knew he was ready to go out and execute and he did."
Elliott, whom the Eagles signed before last week's game against the Chiefs after Caleb Sturgis went down with an injury, drilled his 61-yard attempt to give the Eagles a 27-24 win over the Giants on Sunday afternoon (see breakdown). It was a crazy end to a crazy game.
"It's kind of a blur to me," Elliott said. "I don't really know. All I know is that the ball was in the air for a really long time and [it was] real close to that right upright."
The Eagles led by 14 until the fourth, then gave up the lead, then found a way to tie it. The 61-yard walk-off was fitting.
"We knew Jake had pretty good range," Wentz said. "I wasn't sure 61 is doable. You never really think that. But we had a lot of faith in him. I had a lot of faith in him and he got it done."
The 61-yarder was the longest field goal in franchise history, surpassing Tony Franklin's 59-yard field goal in 1979. It was the longest field goal in the NFL since Matt Prater's 64-yarder in 2013. And there have been just six longer field goals in NFL history (see observations).
All this for a guy who missed a 30-yard chip shot last week.
"You have to be mentally strong as punters and kickers because bad things happen," Jones said. "It's how you bounce back from that and respond. That's what really makes you the player you are."
To set up the game-winning kick, the offense first had to get into position. After a poor punt from the Giants, the Eagles got the ball at their 38-yard line with 13 seconds left. The first pass went incomplete and drained six seconds. The next pass was a 19-yard gain to Alshon Jeffery on the sideline.
It left the Eagles with one second.
"We only had seven seconds," head coach Doug Pederson said. "So we have calculated in a sideline throw can take anywhere from five to six, and we were right on that mark today.
"It was pretty awesome. It sounded like a cannon off his foot. Great snap, great hold. The protection was there. Awesome."
The only reason Elliott is even on the Eagles is because Sturgis was placed on injured reserve with a hip injury suffered in the opener. The Eagles worked out a trio of kickers but instead elected to sign Elliott off the Bengals' practice squad.
The Bengals used a fifth-round pick on Elliott this year. But the Memphis product lost the Cincinnati job to veteran Randy Bullock and was put on the team's practice squad.
While Elliott looked a little shaky in his preseason with the Bengals and even missed his first field goal attempt Sunday, his leg strength has never really been questioned. At Memphis, he made more 50-yarders (10) from 2013-16 than anyone else in the college ranks.
The longest kick he's ever made came in college, a 56-yarder. In warmups, Elliott said he usually tries "50, 56, maybe 57 and call it a day from there."
Still ... 61 yards?
It was something special.
Jones called Sunday the best team win he had ever been a part of. Jenkins said the game was one of the most memorable of his career. Even Jason Peters said this game and the Miracles at the Meadowlands "almost rate the same." There was certainly plenty of drama.
The idea to carry Elliott off the field on Sunday was actually Najee Goode's. But after the game, he was nowhere to be found. That's when Kendricks stepped in and joined Grugier-Hill to hoist the 167-pound kicker and carry him into the tunnel.
"I'll take it," Kendricks said. "It was fun. It was cool, man."
After the kick went through, the capacity crowd of 69,596 erupted and there was chaos on the field. Elliott was at the center of it as the hero of the day (see rookie report).
"It was awesome," Elliott said. "I was just kind of running around, trying not to get hurt."
