Murphy: A quick attempt to make some sense of the Eagles' RB situation
Darren Sproles touched the ball nine times on offense in Sunday's 24-23 loss to the Lions. Six of those touches occurred in the space of two second-quarter drives, both of which resulted in Eagles' points. One of them occurred in the fourth quarter.
The easy conclusion is that the Eagles need to do a better job of re-orienting their offense to work through Sproles, who is the most dynamic player on the roster when he has the ball in his hands. At the same time, things are often more complicated than the easy conclusion suggests. For whatever faults they may have, Doug Pederson and Chip Kelly are not dumb individuals. Any criticism we level at the Silver Fox for his utilization of Sproles is criticism we leveled at Kelly in 2014 and 2015. I'm not sure what conclusion we should draw from that, but it's worth noting.
Three other things worth noting:
Ryan Mathews was on the field for 25 snaps yesterday. He ended up touching the ball on 16 of those 25 snaps. That seems like a pretty remarkable percentage. Mathews carried the ball 11 times, caught it five times, totaling 75 yards and a touchdown (and, of course, a fumble).
Sproles was on the field for 34 snaps, resulting in five carries and four catches (and a questionable chop block).
Neither Kenjon Barner nor Wendell Smallwood earned a single touch. They combined for two — two! — offensive snaps.
This was a strange game in a lot of ways, starting with the fact that each team finished the game with just nine possessions. Perhaps, then, we can chalk up the ball distribution to being a bit of an aberration. As Chipper used to say, the game expressed itself in a certain way. But the running back position was one that all of us circled as a concern heading into the season, and you can certainly argue that yesterday's performance highlighted why.
Mathews was clearly still hampered by the ankle injury that limited him before the bye. There were several occasions when he tried to plant and cut and was obviously missing the sharp power we saw him display throughout last season. He still had a productive day right up to the fumble, but it seemed like there were a lot of rushing yards to be had out there, and I'm not sure that the Eagles maximized the having of them. Long story short, I think yesterday was one example of a game where having a legitimate every-down back would have increased the chances of escaping with a win.