Jake Elliott wanted to give a special shoutout to his dad on Wednesday.
While Elliott was hitting a 61-yard field goal to become a local hero, and while his mom and stepdad were captured celebrating on a video that went viral, his father Bruce was at his home going nuts in front of his TV.
Bruce Elliott planned on driving from Chicago to Philadelphia for the game on Sunday - "He drives everywhere, he's nuts like that," Jake said - but his car died right before he left. He missed his son's record-breaking kick.
"It's all good though," Jake Elliott said on Wednesday. "He caught it on TV and he was excited."
Since hitting that 61-yard kick on Sunday afternoon, it has been a busy few days for Elliott. And based on the throng of reporters that packed around his locker on Wednesday, his 15 minutes aren't quite up just yet.
"It's obviously been a little hectic, everyone reaching out, obviously, which has been great," Elliott said. "All the support I'm getting from back home and back in Memphis, just all the people I've gotten to know over the years, it's been pretty cool. At the same time, it's time to focus back and get ready for this week."
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Despite hitting one of the biggest kicks in franchise history, Elliott had a pretty relaxed Sunday night after the game. He got to hang out with some family, as his mom Diane, his stepdad and his sister Karen, and his girlfriend were in town. They had a low-key evening.
But he said one of the coolest things about the last few days is a number of people who have reached out. "Some big names," he said. One of the biggest was Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, who interviewed Elliott shortly after the game.
From CIN practice squad to hitting a 61-yd game-winning FG!@Eagles rookie K @jake_elliott22 got the call from @DeionSanders! #GameDayPrime pic.twitter.com/daA6xA8q6D— NFL (@NFL) September 25, 2017
"Yeah, it was fun," Elliott said.
There have been several videos of the kick and reactions to it to hit the internet over the last few days, but perhaps the most widely shared was one in which Carson Wentz said before the kick that he'd give Elliott a game check if he makes it.
Well, that's not happening. Instead, Wentz and Elliott came to an agreement that Wentz will donate money to a charity of Elliott's choosing (see story). It was Wentz, in fact, who first texted Elliott the video, along with "an emoji freaking out." After Sunday's game, Wentz admitted he had barely gotten a chance to know Elliott yet.
That 61-yarder would have never happened had Elliott not hit a 46-yard field goal to tie the game at 24-24 just 51 seconds earlier. Earlier this week on the WIP morning show, he agreed that kick was actually the more pressure-packed.
And to think about it further, had Elliott missed that one, he probably would be 2 for 5 on field goal attempts, including a 30-yarder from the previous week, and folks would be calling for his job.
That hasn't happened. Instead, fans are wondering if Caleb Sturgis will ever get his job back.
While Elliott was full of emotion right after drilling his game-winning kick on Sunday, that emotion had completely drained out of him by Wednesday afternoon. He was back to being a boring kicker. And that's not a bad thing. Elliott is pretty even-keeled, an important trait for a guy in his position.
Can his performance on Sunday be a springboard?
"We'll see," said Elliott, who made 6 of 6 attempts to start practice on Wednesday. "We'll try to use it as a little momentum and build some confidence up and keep it rolling."
