Kelce is key to the Eagles success on offense

IT TOOK TIME for those of us participating in the coach's news conferences to get used to not starting off with "ahem, injuries," and it took opposing NFL teams a while to grasp that the Eagles now feature a run-based offense.

But grasp it, they have. The last 4 weeks in a row, the Eagles' rushing totals have declined, from 264 yards to 166 to 140 to 138 to 84. This week the Birds host the Giants, whose 140 rushing yards allowed in a loss to the Eagles 3 weeks ago included 79 yards on seven carries by Michael Vick, the last run ending with Vick pulling his left hamstring. LeSean McCoy, still the NFL's leading rusher, though his yards per carry average has plummeted from 6.4 to 4.9 over the past month, ran for minus-4 yards on seven carries in the second half of that game.

The guy in the middle of the struggles, literally and figuratively, that day especially, was center Jason Kelce, who didn't adjust well to a stunt the Giants pulled with a defensive tackle, sliding across Kelce to his back shoulder, against the grain of the Eagles' favorite running play, the inside zone read.

"I think Jason Kelce takes everything to heart," Chip Kelly said yesterday. "That's what's awesome about Jason Kelce. He demands perfection from himself, and I think he knows - I don't think anybody's going to get perfection - but that is a standard he sets for himself. I think if Jason Kelce graded out at 99 percent, he'd be pissed off. That's just the type of guy he is . . . I don't think Jason played as poorly as he thought he played in the Giants game. He's a competitor. He thinks you should make every block. He thinks you should make every correct call. And he's really been the anchor for us in the middle there."

The Eagles say a big point of emphasis this week has been adjusting to the adjustments teams have made to their running game. With Vick expected to return to the lineup at less than 100 percent, it's unlikely he's going to run for 79 yards on seven carries, and it might not be advisable to put the offense on his shoulders at all.

That would lead us back to McCoy, and Kelce.

Kelce said he studied the Oct. 7 Giants tape intently, wanting to learn "why [the d-tackle's] sliding across in these situations and not these? Whether I'm giving away anything, why is he beating me so clean on it? Stuff like that."

"The best thing about Jason is, if something happens to him, he focuses very hard on what to fix, to not let it happen again," right guard Todd Herremans said.

Kelce said Kelly's message to him right after that game was not quite what Kelly said to reporters yesterday.

"It was basically, 'Mistakes in victory are often forgotten, but no less important,' " Kelce recalled. "He knew that I struggled. On the field, he knew that I was having a rough game . . . he knows that I take it pretty hard, so he was just trying to make sure I was on top of it."

Kelce said he thinks he knows how to fare better against the stunt the Giants used against him. But in general, teams are teeing off against the Eagles' run game, keying on McCoy, who has gained 685 yards on 141 carries, crowding the box with extra players, daring the quarterback to beat press/man coverage with deep passing. Sometimes the Eagles have done that, most notably with Foles in the second half against the Giants and in Tampa. Other times their offense has sputtered.

"We were so successful, with one of our run plays in particular, the inside zone play, the first four or five games, teams have done everything they can to pack the box, stop that play in particular," Kelce said. "It's frustrating from an offensive-line standpoint, because there's still yards out there, but teams are doing a lot better job now of game-planning than they were early in the year, for that play in particular. But it still comes down to, in a lot of instances, especially this last week [against Dallas], to just guys making blocks. I feel like we did a lot better job making blocks early in the season than we have the last few weeks."

McCoy said yesterday that one problem in facing the Giants is that "they've got some guys up front who are pretty good," even more so this time, with defensive tackle Linval Joseph back from injury and recently acquired linebacker Jon Beason playing well in the middle.

"We took some things out of that game, these last few games," McCoy said yesterday. "I think we'll have a good matchup. I think we've made the right adjustments. Coach Kelly's good at that."

McCoy said his blockers weren't to blame for Sunday's 18-carry, 55-yard output against Dallas, that he "didn't show up . . . not really following the plays, doing my own thing . . . I was just trying to make too many things happen. I felt that was probably my worst performance since my rookie year. But I'll bounce back this week, for sure."

Though the Giants rank just 21st in the NFL against the run, in addition to giving McCoy problems, they swarmed all over Adrian Peterson on Monday night, holding the Vikings star to 28 yards on just 13 carries, as New York won for the first time this season.

Giants defensive lineman Justin Tuck told a conference call with Philadelphia-area reporters yesterday that with "this type of offense, you've got to kind of pick and choose your battles. In that [Eagles] game up here, we kind of put everything in the basket of stopping the run. That was something we were dedicated to doing."

Herremans said that in the first meeting, "their plan up front was to clog our zones that we were blocking, just kind of come up and press us at the line and kind of 'mush' everything up front."

One problem with the matchup is that the Giants have a really big, physical defensive line, keyed by 6-4, 350-pound Shaun Rogers. The Eagles' o-line generally is a leaner, more athletic bunch.

"They've got some good d-tackles; they play the run very well," Herremans said. "We've just got to be very sound in our technique, especially going against bigger guys, keep your feet moving, not lean so much. You have to be precise with the combo blocks."

"We've been working different plays; coach Kelly sprinkled some different things in this week," McCoy said.

McCoy, who called Kelce the "captain" of the offensive line, said the center has had a lot to do with McCoy's success.

"I've seen the difference from when I've had him and I haven't had him," McCoy said. Kelce went down for the season with a knee injury in the second week last season. "You can count on him for making the right calls . . . He'll be fine this game. Every player's going to go through that, where they don't play as good as they wanted to play."

Blog: ph.ly/Eagletarian