Marcus Hayes: The Eagles’ run game stinks for ‘obvious’ reasons, but things should change soon.
It was a sensitive topic following a near-loss to the hated Cowboys, and the big lineman was in no mood. The Eagles couldn’t run the ball. They’d even called a long pass play on third-and-3 from their 32-yard line with less than 5 minutes to play and a five-point lead. A real football team runs it there. Twice, maybe. They were in a similar situation about 3 minutes later. Ran it three times. Gained 2 yards, and fumbled on third down because, since they can’t run the ball conventionally, they tried to run a trick play that they mistimed.
The Eagles have become a trick-play, shovel-pass, jet-sweep team because they can’t run the ball. They’re making the best of a bad situation, claiming the run game isn’t awful either because they’re optioning to pass plays after the ball is snapped or because they’re using nontraditional execution to get the ball in their backs’ hands: Nick Sirianni said, “The run game is executing differently than what you’ve seen.” Yeah. It’s not executing. Sirianni proceeded to tie himself in knots with misdirection explanations that make him sound ridiculous, mainly because he’s a lousy liar. Sirianni wants to run the ball forward, behind his linemen and his tight ends, but he can’t, and everybody knows it, and why.
Like Sirianni, after the Cowboys game the lineman was a little frustrated with the situation, a little relieved that it didn’t cost them a win, and a little angry that I’d asked. As we discussed reasons behind the recent disappearance of the Eagles’ running game, he looked down at me with a genial sneer. Is it the absence of Cam Jurgens and the injury to Jalen Hurts’ knee? “Uh, it’s pretty obvious,” he said. And it is. The lineman asked to not be identified, because identifying the causes of the ground game’s impotence commits two sins: It impugns two teammates, Sua Opeta and Tyler Steen, and it acknowledges the frailty of his most important teammate, Hurts. But the numbers don’t lie.
