Philadelphia – It wouldn’t have been surprising if the best run of Brian Westbrook’s day Sunday came at the conclusion of yet another personally disheartening afternoon.
The Philadelphia Eagles running back’s week began with Westbrook opining that he would be as good as LaDainian Tomlinson, the San Diego Charger who’s considered the NFL’s best, if he were “used differently.” It ended with him getting more of the same – a scant 10 carries for a scrawny 25 yards.
Faced with similar disappointment, other players might have beaten a hasty retreat from the locker room rather than have to answer questions, and perhaps, in a moment of frustration, making an incendiary remark. However, when the doors to the Eagles’ lair opened, Westbrook was front and center. And, unbeknownst to him, as he spoke of his contributions to that day’s 20-17 victory, as well as his hope for the future, his coach, Andy Reid, was promising to make Westbrook’s wishes come true.
“I’ve just got to start calling the run. It’s as simple as that,” Reid said. “I’ve got one of the best running backs in the league. I have to use him.”
While perhaps not as robust as he used to be, thanks to an ongoing diet, Reid is still just as crafty. So there’s every chance that his comment was merely an attempt to give Mike Shanahan one more thing to think about in preparing for Sunday’s game at Invesco Field at Mile High.
Then again, Reid may have finally come around to the same conclusion as others around the NFL: The Eagles’ current path may generate enough frequent flyer miles to send the entire team to Hawaii, but nowhere near Detroit, site of Super Bowl XL this February.
“It’s unusual. Very unusual,” Chargers linebacker Randall Godfrey said after Sunday’s game. “I haven’t seen anything like it.”
The handoff has been around almost as long as the Liberty Bell and the Constitution, but so far this season, Philadelphia is treating it as if it’s an unpleasant episode in a Supreme Court nominee’s background – pretending it doesn’t exist. In six games, the Eagles have run just 102 times, an average of 17 carries a game. Churning out an average of 3.4 yards per carry, Philly has mustered just 57.5 yards a contest – dead last in the NFL.
Of the team’s 383 plays, there have been 268 passes, a ratio of nearly three throws to every run. At their current pace, the Eagles would finish the season with 920 yards, the lowest team total since the league moved a 16-game schedule in 1978. Last year, in a season that included an invitation to the Pro Bowl, Westbrook ran for 812 yards. This season, he’s on pace for less than 700.
“As a running back, you always want to run the ball more. I don’t think you could ever run it enough,” Westbrook said. “I guess coach is in kind of a groove throwing the ball.”
And Brad Lidge has made a couple of bad pitches lately. At one point against the Chargers, the Eagles threw the ball 25 straight plays. In the second half, the team called only two runs. Quarterback Donovan McNabb set a single-game record for completions with 35; if you weren’t at Lincoln Financial Field, you would have envisioned Terrell Owens finishing with somewhere around 200 yards in receptions. Instead, the Eagles seemed determined to stretch the field horizontally, McNabb averaged less than five yards for his 54 attempts.
One way or another
Of course, Philadelphia has arguments to rationalize its offensive imbalance. One is that the team has fallen behind in four of its first six games, necessitating the use of the pass to come back. More common is the theory that many of the Eagles’ throws are nothing more than glorified handoffs anyway. Reid is, at heart, one of the biggest proponents of the West Coast offense, so if it was good enough for Bill Walsh and the 49ers, then it’s good enough for the Main Line. Indeed, Westbrook is second on the team with 35 catches, and had 10 against the Chargers.
“Their offense, they control the ball with short passes – if they can get the completion percentage up, they can control the clock,” Chargers wide receiver Keenan McCardell said. “If you look at the first half, they had the ball for almost 21 minutes.
“They do their dinks and dunks and try to hit you over the top with a big play. I think you have to run the ball at least a little bit, but they’re winning with it.”
With all of the numbers being thrown around, the Eagles indeed prefer to look at the bottom line: their 4-2 record, good enough for a share of first place in the NFC East.
“It’s not always going to be pretty,” Reid said, “But we’re doing whatever we need to do to get the W.”
Against the Chargers, the Eagles’ offense didn’t make a first down in the final 19 minutes of the game. In six possessions in that span, they went three plays and out three times, failed to convert on a fourth-and-1 – on an incomplete pass, naturally – and tossed an interception on another occasion.
Too much of that, and even a defense as good as Philadelphia’s will tire.
“I’d like to see them run more, but our offense isn’t really a running offense,” linebacker Jeremiah Trotter said.
On the game’s final possession, McNabb kneeled three times to run out the clock at game’s end. That was about as close to running with the ball as he got all day.
Although he says he’s still a threat to take off, it’s clear that McNabb has been slowed by the injuries he’s suffered this season, a list of hurts that include a bruised sternum and a sports hernia.
McNabb only ran the ball 41 times last year, but averaged almost 5.5 yards a carry; this season, he’s averaged less than a yard on 14 attempts.
“It’s going to get better as the season goes on,” he said. “It’s only been six games – we’re guaranteed 16 and maybe some more in the playoffs. I’m sure that by the end of the year, it’ll get to the point where all of you will be saying that we run the ball too much.”
Staff writer Anthony Cotton can be reached at 303-820-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com.
