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Rich Hofmann: Eagles, Reid might have to take unbalanced approach vs. Vikings
Reid looked up again from the sheets.
Andy: Some of these numbers are pretty lopsided.
DAVID MAIALETTI / Staff photographer
Eagles' Marty Mornhinweg (left) discusses strategy with Andy Reid.
Marty: I told you. Look at Arizona.
Andy: I know - 22 passes and four runs in their first half against the Vikings. But they're crazier than we are anyway.
Marty: Look at New Orleans - 32 passes, eight runs. Look at Jacksonville - 29 passes, eight runs. Chicago, 20 to six. Indianapolis, 22 to nine. Even the Giants on Sunday threw it 60 percent of the time in the first half.
Andy: What's the league average?
Marty: It's 67 percent passes in the first half against Minnesota.
Andy: How about the teams that beat them?
Marty: Still high - 63 percent passes.
Andy: But we're supposed to keep running, right?
Earlier, at his news conference, Reid was talking about some of his protégés among NFL coaches, including Baltimore's John Harbaugh and the Vikings' Brad Childress. Both of them run the ball a bunch.
Reid said, "That's what they have chosen to do. That's their little wrinkle to the thing. They have done it more than probably anybody in this [West Coast] system and done it very well. Brad has one of the best, if not the best running back in the National Football League right now [in Adrian Peterson], maybe the MVP of the National Football League. He's given him the ball a lot and I understand that. He's a heck of a player."
But that is not Reid's philosophy. Whatever balance has been added in the last few weeks has only been because of the crises in Cincinnati and Baltimore.
But, well, now what? Will Reid yield to temptation or stay with the recent plan? Will he stick with the run in the first half, even against that No. 1 run defense? Will he stick with it even if it doesn't produce immediate results? Will he stick with it even if the Eagles fall behind? And if he does lean a little more to the pass, will it be only a little more and not what happened in the second half against the Redskins?
These are the questions. Meanwhile, on the video, Reid and Mornhinweg silently pored over the data. *
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