Bobby April Talks David Akers Struggles & Jorrick Calvin

Eagles special teams coordinator Bobby April met the media this week after his special teams unit probably enjoyed it's most solid performance of the season. If you put Akers missed FGs aside, the coverage teams and the return unit really performed well.

First, he announced that in DeSean Jackson's absence that Jorrick Calvin will handle all punt and kick returns this Sunday

"Yes. Yeah, he'll be the punt returner and he's going to do the kick returning, too. He'll do both. He did a good job [last week]. [He had a] nice return, and had some good blocks. He did a nice job and he did a nice job handling the ball. He's been a good pick up for us."

He was also asked how much of a factor were David Akers kickoffs, which were quite good last week, in the improvement of the coverage unit.

"Tremendous factor. [Laughingly] His kickoffs were just the opposite [of his FGs]. He had a fantastic day. He had three touchbacks, that's pretty tough. Some of the time the wind was - it was kind of a different wind out there and it was swirling to some degree like it does in all stadiums. It's never at a zero degree directly to your back. No matter how it hits, it does different things. He had touchbacks both ways. It helped our coverage, it helped our coverage a lot and it always will."

After the jump, he gets into Akers' struggles last week.

"[The] reason he's really good is because he's competitive, he works at it, he studies it. He's really figured a way to have a handle on this deal. In pregame, he had one of his better pregames. I'm speaking for him a little bit but I've also corresponded with him on this, but he felt he had a pretty good handle on the wind. I think, really, the bare forces of nature beat him a little bit more than his accuracy or his focus or his attention to detail. I think he played some things that he thought were there that were there in pregame. He puts a lot of thought into this deal on exactly how to play it. I don't play golf, but maybe like a golfer on a windy day would probably get the ball on the green - similar. I mean he hit them straight. He hit them where he was aiming. It just didn't move on him like he wanted. Maybe his last one was somewhat of frustration - I don't know. I don't even know that. He certainly was frustrated that his performance was off. He's a critical part of the team. In many ways, he's like the Golden Goose for however many years he's been here. He's led the team in scoring every year. He's probably not usually considered like that guy that's the leading scorer of a team, but he is. If a receiver was the leading scorer every year for 12 years, that guy would probably be in the Hall of Fame. He's a real critical part and he takes his role as a point scorer, he takes it very seriously. It wasn't a great day for him for a lot of reasons. He really feels an obligation to the team when he goes out there and puts points on the board."