Eagles Notes: LeSean McCoy is not injured, Chip Kelly says

When LeSean McCoy was asked Sunday after the Eagles' 26-21 loss to the San Francisco 49ers whether he was fully healthy, McCoy answered that "it doesn't matter." Coach Chip Kelly did not leave that question open for interpretation on Monday when he said his struggling running back is not injured.

"He's healthy," Kelly said. "He's not on the treatment list. He does normal maintenance like everybody else, but he hasn't had any injuries where we've done anything with him."

McCoy, who led the NFL in rushing last season, rushed 10 times on Sunday for 17 yards. He has 192 yards in four games, at 2.7 yards per carry. Injuries to the offensive line have limited McCoy's production, along with defenses focusing on stopping him.

Darren Sproles is averaging 6.7 yards per carry, but he had only one rush on Sunday. No. 3 running back Chris Polk is a physical running back who was productive last season in limited opportunities. Kelly said there is no need to give the other running backs the ball instead of McCoy.

"I don't see it as it's the ballcarrier right now," Kelly said. "We're not generating what we need to do in the run game at all, so it doesn't matter who we're handing it to, whether we hand it to LeSean or Chris or Darren or whomever in that situation."

The Eagles defense was on the field for 42 minutes, 17 seconds on Sunday. The Eagles have the lowest time of possession in the NFL at an average of 24:22 a game. Kelly has belittled the importance of time of possession and said he is not concerned about the toll on the defense.

"When I watched them, I don't think they're winded," Kelly said. "I think we've always done a good job with rotating. . . . Right now I don't see that as anything that affected our defense. I thought our defense played really, really well against a very good offensive football team the other day."

It was not the offense's pace that hurt the time of possession on Sunday as much as three non-offensive scores and third-down penalties that extended 49ers drives.

"There's your time of possession there," Kelly said. "There's four drives that got extended just because of self-inflicted wounds on ourselves. We made the mistake, and we caused the penalty that allowed them to stay on the field when we should have had them off the field."

Kelly said he did not know if linebacker Mychal Kendricks would return this week. Kelly called Kendricks' calf injury a "tricky deal" and noted that the player started running last week.

"Give Mychal credit - he's been in getting treatment every day and working as hard as he can to put himself in a situation to play," Kelly said. "But it'll be an ongoing thing that we'll have to watch this week - what's he like on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday - and kind of see if we can get him fit back into the plans if he can go."