September 13, 2022
In the third quarter of the Philadelphia Eagles' win in Detroit on Sunday, the Lions tried a surprise onsides kick that was calmly recovered by second-year cornerback Zech McPhearson. On the ensuing Eagles possession, the offense only needed to march 51 yards for a touchdown drive that would give them a 17-point lead.
The recovery itself won't make highlight reels. The ball was basically kicked right to McPhearson, who patiently let the ball come to him, before securing the catch and turtling up to protect the ball and himself.
Simple enough, right? Eh, maybe not.
"I had an experience in college where I learned the hard way, so I didn't want that to happen anymore," McPhearson said. "Let's just say I didn't catch the ball, and I took a mean hit, so this time I was just focused on catching the ball and eating the hit."
McPhearson was referring to a 2020 game in which his Tech Texas team was facing Texas, and they had an 8-point lead with a little over two minutes to go. Texas was in a clear onsides kick situation, and Texas Tech was ready. McPhearson tried to jump up for the kick and make a difficult catch, but the ball glanced off his hands and Texas recovered.
Texas would go on to score on that drive, get the two point conversion, and then win in overtime.
But perhaps more impressive than the act of catching the kick on Sunday was that McPhearson and the Eagles were ready for the trick play.
"We were on alert all game for any sort of special teams tricks, any sort of quick change of possession they could get, because their coach has a history of it," McPhearson said. "We were taught all week to watch the ball kicked off the tee, and that's what I did. I was able to possess the football and give it back to the offense."
Credit special teams coordinator Michael Clay for having his players ready.
"It's always great when you have a full off-season going against an opponent that you know can pull out some trickery here and there. I could tell the guys until I'm blue in the face, watch out for the onside kick, but kudos to Zech to stay disciplined, stay in there at that time of the game not to panic. He stayed patient right there," Clay said. "It was actually pretty cool listening to the guys talk about it. They noticed -- and we always talk about we have rules on our kickoff return team, always see the ball kicked. But for him to stay in there and kind of alert -- there was a different pace by the kicker [on his run up to kick the football].
"We had gone over it and we've worked on it in practice. The cool thing about it is what we worked on in practice, it happened in the game. Kind of makes you feel good as a coach that you had these guys prepared."
Huge special teams plays can swing games in favor of less talented teams. McPhearson and Clay deserve a lot of credit for not allowing that to happen on Sunday.
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