Pat Shurmur sheds no light on DeMarco mystery

Eagles offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur talked to reporters Wednesday morning and, to no one's surprise, shed absolutely no light on the mystery of DeMarco Murray's (under) usage this summer.

Murray has been held out of several training camp practices and done limited work in others. He didn't play in Sunday's first preseason game against the Indianapolis Colts, and it remains to be seen whether he'll play against the Baltimore Ravens on Saturday night.

"He'll be out there training today,'' said Shurmur, whose team will spend the next three days practicing with the Ravens at the NovaCare Complex leading up to Saturday's game.

Murray had nearly 500 touches in the regular season and playoffs last season with the Cowboys, and that probably is why the Eagles are treating him like a china doll right now. But you won't hear Shurmur or Chip Kelly say that.

"We had almost 2,000 reps in the spring that he was involved in,'' Shurmur said. "We have a long line of running backs that need to get work. We're just kind of balancing things out."

Shurmur made mention of a running-back rotation. But the Eagles' other new back, Ryan Mathews, hasn't missed a single practice, and played Sunday in the first preseason game against the Colts. Mathews played eight snaps and had two carries for 18 yards.

"He's a veteran player,'' Shurmur said of Murray. "He'll get himself ready to go. And it will be within the structure that we have for him. We're not as concerned about it as I feel this line of questioning (indicates).''

--There have been a few brawls at some of the joint practices around the league this summer, including one this week between the Cowboys and Rams. Shurmur said the coaches have talked to their players about it. "We kind of made our statements up front and told them we just didn't want it to happen,'' he said. "We're going to expect both teams to be professional and guard against it. We'd like to think we're not going to have them. We're all going to be professional and try to get better.''

--Asked what he would like to see from quarterback Sam Bradford in Saturday's game against the Ravens to show he's back, Shurmur said: "We feel he's back. We just want to see him go out and execute efficiently and move the team and get us in the end zone. That's what we want him to do.''

--Shurmur said quarterbacks Tim Tebow and Matt Barkley could get flip-flopped Saturday against Baltimore. Barkley played 35 snaps Sunday, Tebow 34. Barkley played the second quarter and part of the third, and Tebow played the rest of the third and the fourth quarter. "We have some ideas about how we're going to change the quarterback rotation this coming week,'' Shurmur said. "But we haven't solidified it yet. We really expect the quarterbacks to go out and perform regardless of who they're playing with. Whether you're playing behind the second, third or fourth line, we expect the quarterbacks to perform.

--Shurmur praised rookie tight end Eric Tomlinson, who had a team-high five catches for 61 yards against the Colts. "He did a good job,'' Shurmur said. "There were some catches he made where his run-after-catch was terrific. He caught a couple of balls in a crowd. He did some really good things in our mind. He got targeted a lot and made the most of it. He just needs to build on that.''

--Shurmur said John Moffitt, who is competing with Andrew Gardner and Matt Tobin for the starting right guard job, "has probably made the most improvement of anybody, but had the furthest to come since he didn't have the benefit of the spring. But he's done a good job. He battled in there on Sunday. He had way more good plays than bad.''