Rich Hofmann: Eagles added to running game, but that doesn't mean they will use it more

'WE'RE STRIVING to lead the league in rushing this year," Andy Reid said.

It was a joke.

You get the sense he hates talking about this. You especially get the sense that he hates talking about this in May.

"I think things get blown way out of perspective on the run-game part, as far as the number of runs we do," Reid said.

He is really right about that, by the way, except for the game (or maybe two) every season when he is really wrong about that. The exceptions rule the conversation, though, and they always have.

It is a natural enough topic because of the way the Eagles have reconfigured their offense in the offseason. You move a big, strong guard (Shawn Andrews) to right tackle, and you bring in his big, strong brother (Stacy Andrews) to play alongside, and you bring in a big, strong left tackle (Jason Peters) to replace a guy who admittedly wasn't much of a run blocker (Tra Thomas) and, well, you wonder.

You bring in a real fullback (Leonard Weaver) for the first time in a while and, well, you wonder some more. You draft a running back (LeSean McCoy) in the second round and, well, you wonder even more.

Add up all of the names in parentheses and a conversation about running the ball follows pretty easily. As does this question: Were the moves made in order to make the running game better?

"Not necessarily," Reid said. "We try to run it efficiently every year, and we run our offense. We do what we do and we're going to do what's best to win the game. That's not what these moves were necessarily for, no."

Reid says there is not one single thing that the offense needs to do better this season. He says that there was not one single overriding philosophical (or physical) issue that guided the Eagles as they made these changes - and that isn't to forget about first-round wideout Jeremy Maclin or fifth-round tight end Cornelius Ingram.

"Probably not one thing," Reid said. "There are a handful of things. We talked about the red zone, short yardage and goal line. Those are things we need to do a better job at. That's not the reason why we brought in the personnel that we brought in. We needed to change some things on the offense, maybe in some spots where we were getting a little older and we needed to get a little bit younger, and we did that."

Little older/little younger explains the changes at tackle, and at backup running back. But so does the running game in general, and the short-yardage running game in particular.

The Chicago game and the first Washington game last year, both losses, pivoted on short-yardage run issues and contributed greatly to the Eagles being forced to scramble wildly to make the playoffs. You also can argue that the Cincinnati and Baltimore games - the two really sensationally unbalanced pass/run games of the season, one a tie, the other another loss - might have been so unbalanced because of a lack of trusted depth at running back when Brian Westbrook was gimpy.

"We really strive to run it efficiently," Reid said, gamely. It is his stance and he is sticking to it, the efficiently/situationally business. He is more right than wrong, too. The problem is, when the Eagles don't run it efficiently, when they don't run it well in the important running situations, the whole thing can go haywire - at which point a big bull's-eye gets painted on the laminated playcalling chart that Reid holds on the sideline.

But think back. Thomas wasn't a run blocker and Jon Runyan was gutting his way through a bad knee (plus other aches). There was no real fullback. Westbrook was limping for much of the year. Tony Hunt was cut. Correll Buckhalter was a lousy pass blocker, limiting him somewhat, but his underutilization remains one of the great unanswered questions of 2008.

Add it all up and you saw what happened. The Eagles' yards-per-carry, admittedly a very rough gauge of what's going on, dropped to 4.0 last season, down from 4.7 in 2007 and 4.8 in 2006. They were down to 22nd in the NFL in rushing yardage per game.

With all the changes, there remains a chance the Eagles will run it more this season. But it will be a shock if they don't run it better. That is the message of this offseason, even if Andy Reid can't quite bring himself to say it out loud. *

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