Breaking Down the Breakdowns

From a missed field goal to a failed two-point conversion try to their own version of the butt fumble, the Eagles had their share of bloopers and miscues in a 26-16 loss to Andy Reid and the Chiefs.

Let’s take a closer look at what went wrong on these plays.

Snap to no one 

With the Eagles set up at midfield late in the first quarter, Jason Kelce made a rare mistake. But it was an egregious one.

For whatever reason, Kelce thought that Michael Vick was under center and snapped the ball accordingly. Problem was, Vick was in shotgun. The ball caromed off Kelce’s backside, hit off Todd Herremans and then fell to the ground, and Justin Houston picked it up.

“I thought the quarterback was under. Obviously he wasn’t,” said Kelce, clearly frustrated with himself. “That’s as bad as it gets for an offensive lineman. If there’s one position that you get paid for consistency, it’s the offensive line.”

Can’t you feel when the QB is behind you?

“You do if you’re paying attention to that, but very few times am I ever paying attention to whether the quarterback’s under. Obviously, I need to do that every single play now. The way the plays are called and signaled I should know that every single play. From an offensive lineman’s perspective — really from any football player’s perspective — you lose your concentration for one split second, something like that happens.”

One of Kelce’s shotgun snaps came in hot at the start of third quarter. Vick couldn’t handle it and was forced to take a sack. Kelce injured the thumb on his snapping hand against the Chargers. Did that impact his play on Thursday?

“I’m not going to make any excuses for that. All the other snaps for the rest of the game were good, so I would be disingenuous to blame that,” he said.

Missed field goal

With the Chiefs up 16-9 late in the third quarter, Alex Henery misfired wide-left on a 48-yard field goal attempt.

“All you can do as a kicker is come back. It’s not your last kick, it’s your next kick. Three points definitely help out there. You never know what could happen after that: you get a stop, go down and score a touchdown and you’d be in the lead.”

Henery also missed one against San Diego last week in what turned out to be a three-point loss.

Is there an adjustment period going on with holder Donnie Jones?

“No, they’re doing great,” said Henery. “I just pulled down, I got caught in the wind and it went straight left on me. I’ll fix it, come back next week and correct it.”

Two-point attempt

Chip Kelly decided to roll the bones early in this one and went for two after 22-yard TD from Vick to Jason Avant. Here was the look:

It’s called a “swinging gate” play. The Eagles loaded up to the left side and Jon Dorenbos direct snapped it out to Zach Ertz, who lined up behind a wall of five blockers. As you can see, Kansas City had five defenders to that side. The Eagles had the numbers they were looking for, but no one accounted for Tamba Hali (just to the inside of Lane Johnson), who came clean to make the tackle. All of the linemen crashed to the left, and Hali had a clear path.

“We just had our count off,” said Herremans. “There was a little confusion. That was on us. It was a good scheme. We should have gotten into the end zone there easily, we should have been able to walk in. Didn’t happen.

“We left a man unblocked.”

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