Jalen Hurts Injury: The Issue with Philadelphia Eagles Run Game?
PHILADELPHIA - The Philadelphia Eagles' ground game hasn't been up to snuff in recent weeks to most outside the gates of the NovaCare Complex. Still, coach Nick Sirianni isn't about to sound any alarm bells.
In fact, the Eagles coach went the opposite direction after Sunday's heart-pounding 28-23 win over Dallas extended Philadelphia to 8-1 on the season at its bye week with a 2 1/2-game lead over the Cowboys in the NFC East by pushing back on the premise of a question surrounding the run game.
“I know you're just asking the question. I don't agree with it,” Sirianni parried.
The Eagles ran for just 109 yards on 33 carries against Dallas and leading rusher D'Andre Swift had just 43 yards on 18 carries, a dismal 2.4 yards per clip.
With a chance to seal the game late, Swift got three opportunities and managed two yards, one-yard and minus-two on three consecutive totes.
"There's more to the run game like those numbers, than just what the stats say," the coach explained. "And so that's how I'm kind of answering that. You guys can take that, I think I've done a good job explaining that and I don't want to get too far into that, the scheme things, but yeah, that's how we see it.”
D’Andre Swift (left) and Jalen Hurts
USA TODAY
To be fair to Sirianni, he, as well as former offensive coordinator Shane Steichen, and current OC, Brian Johnson, have often explained that the short passing game, run-pass options, and other anomalies can affect the black-and-white numbers on a stat sheet.
And Sirianni has a good example to lean on against the Cowboys, a 22-yard gain by D'Andre Swift on a jet sweep. For a team under center that play would generally be recorded as a run but for the Eagles. who spend the majority of their time in the shotgun, the mechanics of the play have quarterback Jalen Hurts tossing the football forward to Swift so it's recorded as a passing play.
In either scenario, it's the same play from an execution standpoint for an offense but recorded differently from a statistical standpoint.
“I think the run game is executing differently than what you've seen,” Sirianni said. “Again, when you just look at a stat book, you're not going to get that information exactly the way it is, right? So, I mean, we run a jet sweep to D’Andre that goes for 22 yards; that counted as a pass."
Not in the coaching staff's mind, however.
"That's a run. That's a run," he said. "It's just the way we gave them the football. Some teams are under center and turn it around and hand it to the guy. Some teams that are gun teams catch it and pitch it forward. For the teams that catch it and pitch it forward, they get pass yards. For the teams that turn around and hand it, they get run yards. It's a style of what you are in your offense as far as if you're a gun team or an under team."
It doesn't end there for the Eagles coaching staff either.
“You look at the other plays, the explosive play to Dallas Goedert, well, it counts as a pass. Well, I've got it but it's an RPO," said Sirianni. "It's an RPR (run-pass-run option). When you do that, you're reading an end and then some teams play -- some teams read it, and I don't want to get too much into the scheme of it, but some teams read it and they play option football and some teams read it and play pass-forward football.
"Those are runs.”
The disconnect is the traditional running game where QBs simply turn and hand the football to a back.
The real issue with the Eagles' running game is that it's fueled by the plus-one impact Hurts typically brings which manipulates the spacing of the defense and makes things easier for the running backs.
Without the perceived threat of Hurts pulling the football and threatening the backside on those RPOs and RPRs since the star signal caller suffered a left knee injury described as a bone bruise against the Los Angeles Rams things have gotten tougher for the Eagles on the ground.
Overall, Philadelphia is still a very good running offense on paper, ranking No. 7 in the NFL but that's skewed by 200-plus early-season performances against Minnesota and Tampa Bay when Hurts was healthy and still impacting the spacing of defenses.
Over the past four games, not so coincidently starting after the Rams game, Philadelphia is averaging just 86.8 yards on the ground, topping out at 109 against the Cowboys.
Semantics and the occasional mischaracterized jet sweep aside, If the efficacy is to return to the Eagles' run game, it will be accompanied by better health for Hurts and the bye week can only help accelerate that outcome.
"Selfishly, I don't think the bye week could have come at a better time," Hurts admitted after beating the Cowboys.
