Jake Elliott's up-and-down night ends with redemption

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Eagles kicker Jake Elliott had just put on his red Christmas sweater that said, "Your Mom Believes in Santa," when, from a few locker stalls over, Nelson Agholor called out for his attention. 

Agholor didn't need to say anything. When Elliott looked his way, Agholor clenched his right hand into a fist and pounded his chest twice. 

Kicker life is good after hitting a game-winner. 

Even though the Eagles scored a defensive touchdown on the last play of the game, it was Elliott's 48-yard kick with 22 seconds left that gave them the win. At around halftime, Elliott said he knew there was a good chance the game would be in his hands ... or on his foot. 

"I had a really good feeling it was going to come down to one," he said. "And luckily it did."

When Ronald Darby picked off Derek Carr's pass with 57 seconds remaining in regulation, the Eagles' sideline exploded. Because some thought Darby wasn't touched on the ground and returned it for a touchdown, many Eagles were celebrating. Chris Long dropped to the ground to make a fake snow angel. It was crazy. 

But through it all, Elliott quietly picked up a football, went past the bench to his tee and began booming practice kicks into the netting. 

His game-winning field goal was a beauty. It was wind-aided, but it would have been good from much farther. It clinched the win and the No. 1 seed for the Eagles on the tail end of an absolutely wild game that at one point featured three turnovers in 38 seconds. 

"I didn't even react out of excitement. I just took a deep breath," Torrey Smith said. "Like, 'thank you.' We had like nine lives. We were able to get it done. That was a pretty stressful game. It was weird the last quarter or so. So to come out on top, it was huge for us." 

Even though Elliott missed a chip-shot 33-yarder — he said he just kicked behind it — toward the south side of the stadium earlier in the game, he admitted that was clearly the easier side to kick toward because of the wind on Monday night. That's the way the final kick went. Either way, the temperature was in the 20s, with wind chills in the teens and gusting winds at times.  

"Definitely not ideal conditions," Elliott said. "But you play around with it in warmups and try to get a feel for each end."

Before the second half, Elliott got on the field and tried to make some adjustments on that side of the field. He kicked a few extra warmups because of the cold weather. 

Nick Foles and the offense struggled most of the night, but they were able to move the ball 21 yards to the Oakland 31-yard line on that last drive to set up the game-winner. Elliott said he felt good from about 55 to 57 yards on that side of the field, and Doug Pederson said the goal was to get the ball to at least the 35.

"You really want to get as close as possible to take a lot of pressure off," Foles said. "But we have one of the best kickers in the NFL, so he was able to make it work.”

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