An Eagles defender who was not on the active roster early in the season tipped the Bears' brutal missed game-winning field goal and kept his team's season alive
- With a bid to the playoffs on the line and just seconds remaining in the game, Chicago Bears kicker Cody Parkey missed a go-ahead field-goal attempt when the ball ricocheted off the upright and bounced the wrong direction off the crossbar.
- Thanks to the miss, the Philadelphia Eagles won, 16-15, and will advance to take on the New Orleans Saints Sunday.
- New footage suggests that Parkey may not be at fault as Eagles' defensive tackle Treyvon Hester tipped the kick with his fingers.
- Hester didn't begin the season as a member of Philadelphia's 53-man roster, but his heroics kept the Eagles' dreams of winning back-to-back Super Bowls alive for another week.
Kicker Cody Parkey faced the ire of millions of Chicago Bears fans when his 43-yard field-goal attempt to beat the Philadelphia Eagles in their wild-card game, ricocheted off the goal post twice and failed to bounce through the uprights.
But new footage suggests that the anger is misplaced. Meet Treyvon Hester, the defensive tackle who saved the Eagles' season after spending part of the year on their practice squad.
After the game, multiple Eagles players - including Hester himself - claimed he got a finger on Parkey's kick. Since then, videos from multiple angles have cropped up on social media and appear to confirm those claims.
Here's a side shot of the play:
And, even in real time, this video seems to provide pretty substantial evidence in Hester's favor:
Hester - who played for the Toledo Rockets in college - was taken by the Oakland Raiders in the seventh round of the 2017 NFL Draft and waived by the team early this season. Philadelphia signed Hester to its practice squad days later and promoted him to the active roster less than a month after that.
It's pretty clear that the move has worked out in the team's favor. Hester and the Eagles will look to extend the magic one more week as they take on Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints Sunday.