Philadelphia Eagles come in 28th in Rick Gosselin's 2012 special teams ranking

Rick Gosselin of the Dallas Morning News released his yearly rankings of special teams units and it should come as now surprise to Eagles fans that their team did not fare so well. According to his rankings, which take into account 22 different categories, the Eagles finished at #28.

The only teams ranked lower were Oakland, Detroit, Washington & Carolina. So actually, Oakland has improved by hiring Bobby April. He's one spot better than what they had last year.

The Vikings were the top squad in 2012 and Miami, where new Eagles ST coach Dave Fipp came from, ranked #4.

Gosselin also broke down the top and bottom teams in each individual category and the Eagles showed up twice, both on the bottom.

First was giveaways, which is something that has plagued the Eagles on every level for the past 2 seasons. They had a league worst 4 giveaways on special teams this year. 7 teams made it through the year without giving it away once.

The Eagles also ranked dead last in terms of punts inside the 20. Chas Henry put 2 inside the 20 in 3 games while Mat McBriar put 13 in 13 games. Without knowing the situations, this one is hard to put on any one guy. That said, McBriar had a little over one touchback every other game, which was right near the top of the league.

Here are the full ranks.

To compile the rankings, Gosselin uses the following stats: Kickoff return, punt return, kickoff coverage, punt coverage, average starting field position after kickoff, opponent's average starting field position after kickoff, punting, net punting, inside-the-20 punts, opponent's punting, opponent's net punting, field goals, field goal percentage, opponent's field goal percentage, extra point percentage, points scored, points allowed, blocked kicks, blocked kicks allowed, takeaways, giveaways and penalties.