Chas Henry says its a pass he makes all the time in practice. Moreover, its a play they practice nearly every day. So when the Eagles punter saw the Bears formation on 4th-and-6 from their 42 with 9:28 to go in the game, the Eagles punter figured it was time to go for it.
Smart move, right?
I babied it, Henry said of the throw. The guy was wide open and I didnt want to overthrow him and I babied it.
Henry, the rookie punter out of Florida, short-armed the fake-punt throw to a wide open Colt Anderson that would have given the Eagles a first down into Bears territory. Instead, the Bears took the lucky break and wiped more than five minutes off the clock before booting a field goal with 4:01 left to extend their lead to six points.
Essentially, that was all she wrote.
Meanwhile, it may sound a bit curious that the rookie punter was attempting a fake at a crucial point of the game. To Henry, though, it was a routine play. In fact, he said, its a play that has a high success rate during practice. Shoot, Henry was even a quarterback for East Paulding High in Dallas, Ga. and threw for 1,700 yards for his state championship team his senior year.
Mix in that Henry completed a pass when he was a freshman punter at Florida and even ran the ball three times for 25 yards in college and maybe he would have been silly not to try the fake.
NFL
Then again, maybe not.
If hindsight is 20-20, I probably dont like the fake punt. head coach Andy Reid said, Its very seldom you have a guy completely uncovered out there. We had a chance to make a big play, so that was the decision made. We didnt execute it quite right.
Anderson looked helpless when diving for a pass that never made it to him.
They were going for the block, and with that field position its right in the middle of the field, Anderson said. We just thought that we could make that play, and it didnt work out.
According to Henry, Reid didnt make the call. Instead, it was an audible that came when the Eagles lined up and saw the Bears formation. Henry says they saw the Bears line up that way on the films they studied for the past two weeks and knew there would be a point in a game to pull out the fake punt.
We ran it all week and I had no issue hitting it, Henry said. It just didnt do it tonight.
Worse, Henry knew his pass was off the mark as soon as he released it.
As soon as it left my hand I knew it was short, the rookie punter said.
I just didnt throw it hard enough. I tried to loft it over there and I screwed it up.
Said Anderson: We had a great opportunity, but we didnt cash in.
Otherwise, Henry had two punts for 71 yards and a net of 26 yards per punt. He put one on the Bears 13 in the first quarter, but ultimately it was the pass and not a punt that Henry wants back.
E-mail John Finger at jfinger@comcastsportsnet.com.