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The Education of LeSean McCoy

He swears it doesn't, but how do Sundays not slip into his dreams? Isn't it the basic plot of a nightmare, and the worst one of all? Worse than falling from a great height. Worse than teeth falling out. Or bugs. Worse because of the vulnerability. The harrowing part isn't even the idea of getting caught, the grisly prospect that might await. Being chased is what's so unnerving.

Fox TV cameras catch McCoy giving Andy Reid a celebratory shot to the gut.
Fox TV cameras catch McCoy giving Andy Reid a celebratory shot to the gut.Read more

He swears it doesn't, but how do Sundays not slip into his dreams? Isn't it the basic plot of a nightmare, and the worst one of all? Worse than falling from a great height. Worse than teeth falling out. Or bugs. Worse because of the vulnerability. The harrowing part isn't even the idea of getting caught, the grisly prospect that might await. Being chased is what's so unnerving.

You. You're it. The prey.

So I asked LeSean McCoy again. Sounds weird, I know, but I've always wondered if great running backs have that nightmare of being chased?

Strip away the game's benevolence - the rules, man - and fade the stadium glow into simple moonlight, and what's the difference for a LeSean McCoy? He can feel their eyes tracking him. He can hear them panting. They are trying to corner him. Taking angles. Closing exits.

McCoy laughed. A polite laugh. An "I can't believe you expect me to respond to that weird of a question" sort of laugh.

Do you? Do you ever dream about that? I asked.

"Nah, not me," he shrugged, brushing aside the question by taking issue with its premise.

"I'm not great yet," he says.

Not yet. But debatable.

Definitely soon then. Soon like this weekend soon.

Entering tomorrow's game against the Cowboys, McCoy already has eight touchdowns (six on the ground) and 569 yards rushing, placing him in sight of Wilbert Montgomery's single-season franchise record of 1,512. He's averaging 5.4 yards per carry. That's half a first down every run.

"McCoy," says Dick Vermeil, Montgomery's old coach, "has a chance to move into a very special category if he keeps going like this."

Just when did this happen? And where in the world is Brian Collins Westbrook? Thirty-six? Remember him? Eight seasons in green. Better all-around back than - please say the following in hushed tones - Montgomery. Westbrook averaged 4.6 yards per carry for his Eagles career. He also caught 426 passes in his Eagles career, 90 in one season. Between rushing and receiving, he nearly amassed 10,000 Birds yards. And nobody was better at picking up a blitz than the 5-8 Westbrook.

So strange how he left for that 1 year in San Francisco with kisses and hugs but no hue and cry. When Brian Dawkins left for Denver, signs were scrawled and petitions signed. There was Occupy NovaCare. A guy lost his job at Lincoln Financial Field over Facebooking outrage. When Donovan McNabb left for Washington, the noise rivaled a fallen regime.

Has ever a transition from a star player gone smoother than with Westbrook to McCoy? From third-round pick from Villanova to second-round pick from Pitt. Remix. Back-to-back game-breaker backs, by Andy Reid, the Happy Passaholic.

In late summer 2007, the Eagles played a preseason game in Pittsburgh at night, so general manager Howie Roseman - then the vice president of football administration - decided to watch an afternoon practice at the University of Pittsburgh. That's when he really first saw LeSean McCoy. He was just a freshman at the time, but Roseman had heard of him. The kid from Harrisburg. And that day, while scouting Pitt seniors with typical due diligence, Roseman watched a young McCoy during a scrimmage reverse the field and run 99 yards for a touchdown. "He looked like Tony Dorsett," Roseman recalls.

Less than 2 years later, having declared himself eligible for the draft following his sophomore year, McCoy showed up at the Indianapolis scouting combine fighting the flu. He had dropped weight and looked gaunt. This played to the Eagles' advantage since they were fully prepared to trade up to draft McCoy as the heir apparent to Westbrook. But teams were cool on him. Sometimes in the scouting game, as Roseman pointed out, a player's fate comes down to one image burned in somebody's mind.

"Players can look different out of pads and that can stay with you," Roseman says. "You know Trent Cole weighed 236 pounds at the combine. He had pneumonia. Sometimes it's hard to block out those images of a player. With Shady, I couldn't get that 99-yard touchdown out of my mind. It always stuck with me."

So the Eagles scooped up McCoy with the 53rd overall pick. Thank you kindly, ma'am. If football isn't trying to kill off the running back, it certainly has devalued him. The root cause takes you to places like Stillwater on Saturdays and all those college spread offenses featuring no-block, all-catch tight ends. Seam gypsies, they are. But there is also a football "Moneyball" play at work.

"When you draft a player in the first round, you hope he's going to be a player for a decade," Roseman explains. "Certain positions, the life span just isn't that long. Look at running backs and the pounding they take. Now offensive linemen are different. They have more longevity."

Alabama's Mark Ingram possessed all of the qualities of a franchise back, and was indeed the first one selected in the 2011 draft. The Saints took him at 28, the only runner to go in the first round. Oklahoma's DeMarco Murray, who rushed for 253 yards last week for the Cowboys, didn't go until the third round.

Consider the NFL of 25 years ago. Six running backs were taken in the first round of the 1986 draft, including Bo Jackson with the top overall pick and Keith Byars by the Eagles at No. 10. In 1981, six running backs were taken in the first round, including George Rogers first overall and Freeman McNeil at three. Six more were selected in the first round in 1976, including four in the first nine picks.

"There are a lot of tailbacks," contends Roseman. "Of course, it's not that easy to find great ones. But you can't find 6-foot tall, 200-pound corners who run. You can't find 300-pound linemen who can move their feet. There is a bigger selection of skill people."

They resemble each another in the way shadows do, cast from people of the same build. They certainly resemble each other in skill set, and somewhat in speech because you can tell the one paid attention to the other. Brian Westbrook was a wonderful runner and an exceptional receiver. LeSean McCoy is wonderful receiver and an exceptional runner.

Dick Vermeil sees McCoy more as Marshall Faulk.

"They're both drastic-cut guys," explains Vermeil, who coached Faulk with the Rams. "They both run on right angles. Now Wilbert was a slasher, Westbrook a dasher. McCoy and Marshall slow it down . . . and then burst up the field. They make it look so effortless. They're so fast they catch you by surprise."

"Shady sets up the backside run by trying to get to the heels of the o-line before you make your cut," Westbrook says. "If you make your cut too early, the defense can adjust. But if you wait until you reach the heels, the defense cannot recover. That's what he is so good at. He's very patient."

Now, Westbrook continues: "He has a lot more weapons around him than I did. [Jeremy] Maclin. [DeSean] Jackson. [Brent] Celek. They have different guys around him. Add in [Michael] Vick. I had to go slide out and run actual pass routes. We were a little bit different that way."

McCoy concedes the abundance of weapons around him. It's why when asked about his optimum number of carries, he doesn't hesitate: 16. He repeats himself. "Yes, I would like to average 16 carries a game. Because we have so many weapons on this team, it would be selfish of me to ask for more carries."

McCoy says all the right things. He solicits praise for his offensive line, especially Todd Herremans. No, really, he stops the conversation. From left guard to right tackle, back to left tackle. Seriously, dude? How do you do that and play as well as he does? He moves over to his coach. "Love that guy," he says. "You see me get 'im in the gut?"

Yes, Andy Reid says you hit him in the right spot. Says he hasn't been hit like that by anyone in 20 years.

McCoy is proud of himself. He shrugs when asked about Reid's uneven approach to the run. "Like I said, I'd like to average 16 carries," he said.

Westbrook will say, "Andy definitely lacks a commitment to the run. It's tough to get into a rhythm when you're not touching the ball."

McCoy, however, is touching the ball with frequency. He has already rushed the ball 105 times through the first six games. But what he's most proud of is becoming a complete back.

"It's part of my job to pick up the blitz," he says. "I don't want to come off the field. I want to be a three-down back. That's what I really had to work on. B-West was a great blocker."

Westbrook nods with approval when he hears this. "You have to want to block," he says. "Some guys don't want to block and never will. It takes a certain type of guy to give up all those pounds and stick your face in a linebacker's chest, a defensive lineman's belly. I had a desire to be on the field all the time and I also knew that if Donovan [McNabb] got hurt, we're in big trouble. It's similar to LeSean with Mike Vick. He goes out and that changes the entire complexion of the team."

You can hear Westbrook preaching to McCoy in Old Head speak. Have to want it, little brother.

"When I came in, I was running behind Brian Mitchell, Duce Staley and Dorsey Levens, and I absorbed any knowledge given to me," Westbrook says. "LeSean had that same kind of thirst. Lot of times you get young guys who come in thinking they already know. They know how it is. They're trying to fit in so much. Too much. Trying to be something they're not. And so they don't have time to listen. They don't want to hear what to do, what not to do. Shady wanted to learn from the older guys. He was like my little brother. Hopefully, some of the stuff I said struck him the right way and I helped him along his journey."

Jon Runyan made no bones about it. He was no tutor. The former tackle used to say, "I'm not helping some young player take my job."

"When I was rookie," contends Westbrook, "I thought it was my job to take the starter's job. As a starter, I thought it was my job not to let anyone else see the field. If somehow you're better than me, then good luck. You deserve to be out there."

With McCoy, Westbrook, however magnanimous-sounding his aims, acknowledges it was different. McCoy, first, is a charmer. It's really impossible not to like him. Westbrook says it was uncanny how McCoy reminded him of his younger brother. And indeed, when Westbrook talks about him, he transforms back to the older brother and begins preaching as though McCoy were in the room.

"One of the things that concerns me with him is that he needs to hold that ball a little tighter," he says. "He likes to swing that ball. I just need him to secure that ball."

When the message is relayed, McCoy nods sheepishly. "B-West is right," he says. "I'm gonna really work on that."

The survival of a running back always hinges on mathematics. Calculating angles and speeds. That and the mind's eye. All of the great backs possess the gift. It directs them during a play, their own personal GPS that plays in their head. Turn right in 3 yards. Cut back in 4. Straight ahead for 50.

"I can't even tell you how it comes to me," McCoy says. "I just run and do it. It just happens. You make a move. I just sense defenders coming."

The run that put Shady in the light happened last season in Week 9 against the then-stout, Manningful Colts. It was the first play from scrimmage. The Eagles had the ball on their 28. They came out with backs in the I formation.

McCoy opened the play standing back at the 20, took the handoff from Vick at the 23 and headed left. As he neared the 28, four Colts defenders began to converge. Left tackle Jason Peters sealed off his man, but that still left the right end diving at McCoy's feet, looking to, at the very least, push the play toward two approaching Colts. McCoy slowed on the turn and pitter-patted softly, his feet tapping the ground in rhythmic fashion. Both defenders overran the angle by a quarter-step, and McCoy suddenly accelerated, splitting the three players.

Five yards downfield, he was greeted by two more Colts, positioned side by side, two great walls of beef. He ran directly at them, they both lunged, and he jump-slid to the right with the precision of a pendulum. From there, he angled right. Midfield approached. He spied a cornerback moving toward him, DeSean Jackson in pursuit. McCoy darted left and quickly back right, which turned yet another defender completely around and directly into Jackson. Now it was a footrace in the center of the field. The free safety angled toward him at the Colts' 40 and McCoy reached to stiff-arm, but the safety dived at his feet and McCoy hurdled him. He continued forward, the end zone in sight. But a trailing defender - diving desperately - grabbed the back of McCoy's jersey, slowing him just enough for another Colt to leap on his back and finally grind him to the ground at the 10-yard line.

The play went for 62 yards. It took 14 seconds.

"LeSean creates big plays," Roseman says. "It's his vision. He sees things you can't draw up. You can draw up a play that you hope will get you 5-6 yards and he'll take it another way and turn it into a big, big gain."

The mind's eye leads him. He has a gift. And maybe that's why LeSean McCoy seems impervious to repressed feelings from Sundays. If the bogeyman ever did show up in one of his dreams, he would simply cut it back upfield and leave him in the dust.

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