McCoy near 6,000 mark

THIS IS not really something that Eagles fans will be rooting to happen this weekend - and you will see why in a second - but three different players could join the 6,000 rushing yard club Sunday.

First off, LeSean McCoy (5,978) is just 22 yards shy of 6K. And when he does reach that level, he will have passed Brian Westbrook (5,995) for second place on the Eagles' all-time list.

McCoy would be the 84th player in NFL history to reach 6,000 rushing yards . . . or the 85th . . . or the 86th.

Yes, someone could beat him to it, such as former Eagles quarterback Michael Vick, who needs 51 yards to get there. Vick will be starting for the Jets Sunday across the field from the newest 6K club member, Kansas City's Jamaal Charles, who joined the band 3 weeks ago against San Francisco.

And across the field from McCoy this week in Houston is another possibility: the Texans' Arian Foster, who would need 171 yards to break the 6,000-yard mark. That is entirely doable, since he has two games of at least that many in his career and the Birds have been known to allow the occassional opposing running back to have his way with them.

Here are the career numbers for the three players knock, knock, knocking on 6,000's door:

GP Att. Yds. Avg. TD

LeSean McCoy. . . 81 1286 5978 4.65 40

Michael Vick. . . 134 839 5949 7.09 36

Arian Foster. . . 66 1277 5829 4.56 52

Here are some other statistics that caught out attention this week . . .

* The Eagles and Cardinals took 3 hours, 39 minutes to play their game last Sunday. We checked every Eagles summary back to 1998 (before we simply ran out of time and coffee), and that ties for the longest non-overtime Birds game in that span. Also at 3:39, was a 38-17 mauling of the 49ers in 2002, when San Francisco threw the ball 63 times.

* A couple of streaks that ended for the Eagles in that Cardinals game:

For one, they had won 13 consecutive games when they rushed for 100 yards as a team . . . For another, they had won 12 consecutive times when leading after three periods . . . And they failed to reach 21 points for the first time (including playoffs) in a club-record 15 games.

* And how about those World Series champion San Francisco Giants, who have now won nine consecutive playoff series, not to mention a one-game wild-card playoff to kick off their 2014 run.

Hard. To. Do.