Super Bowl LIX Comparisons: Special Teams

Leading up to the Philadelphia Eagles rematch with the Kansas City Chiefs in New Orleans, Sports Talk Philly and Eagledelphia will compare the personnel of the two teams each day until gameday is here.

In this edition of our week-long comparison, we will look at the key special teams players that the Eagles and Chiefs will field for the big game.

Philadelphia ST | Jake Elliott, Braden Mann, Rick Lovato, Cooper DeJean, Kenneth Gainwell

Jake Elliott has had a bad year. He’s just 77.8% on field goals during the regular season and a pitiful 1/7 on 50+ yard attempts. He missed one extra point and two 30-49-yard field goals, making it his worst year since 2020 when his future with the team was in question by many fans. He’s been perfect on FGs inside 50 yards during the playoffs with six, but missed his only one longer and has missed 3 out of 12 extra point attempts during the past three games.

Braden Mann is averaging 48.8 yards per punt this season and has a touchback percentage of 13% and downed punts inside the 20 on 37% of his attempts. He’s allowed 187 return yards against this season for 41.9 net yards per punt.

Copper DeJean is returning punts due to injuries to Britain Covey. He averaged 10 yards per return during the season but is averaging just 4.3 in the playoffs. Kenneth Gainwell has been taking the kicks and averaged 25.3 yards per return during the regular season – that’s gone up to 27.5 in the playoffs.

Kansas City ST | Harrison Butker, Matt Araiza, James Winchester, Nikko Remigio, Samaje Perine

Butker’s 2022 season is probably the only one worse than this one for him. He’s at 84% but has missed only one kick inside 50 yards and is 2/5 from 50+. He did also miss two extra points on the regular season. He hasn’t attempted a kick of 40 or more yards in the playoffs and has been perfect with 4/4 on field goal attempts and 5/5 on extra points.

Matt Araiza is averaging 48.8 yards per punt this season and has a touchback percentage of 14.5% and downed punts inside the 20 on 40.3% of his attempts. He’s allowed 271 return yards against this season for 41.5 net yards per punt.

Nikko Remigio is returning punts and kicks due to injury. They’ve had him take over both for the most part and he’s been effective returning 11 of each for an average of 9.5 on punts and 26.8 on kicks during the regular season. He’s been downright dangerous in the playoffs with a 63-yard kick return (26.7 average otherwise) and a 41-yard punt return (11 otherwise). Samaje Perine is technically a returner, but has just one since Week 14 – a 21-yard return in the divisional round.

Edge:

The kickers are nearly even and are both having rough years, but Butker has been perfect in the playoffs and has actually made a kick over 50 yards in the past year – something Jake Elliott hasn’t even been close to doing this season. Mann might have a slight advantage over punting due to his net yardage, but it isn’t too significant and not as much so as the trust in kickers. There isn’t too much difference in the returners’ season stats, but the Eagles punt returning during the playoffs have been pretty poor while the Chiefs have had huge kick and punt returns over the past two weeks, so they have the hot hand there. That makes this a near clean sweep for the Chiefs.