Philadelphia Eagles now have to ride or die with Josh Adams
After finally committing to running the ball consistently, it’s clear the Philadelphia Eagles will go only as far as Josh Adams’ feet will take them.
On Sunday, the Philadelphia Eagles run the ball more than they threw the ball, and in a surprising turn of events, they actually won.
Gee, I wonder if there is any correlation there?
And in a totally wild twist of fate, the team may have finally found their next bell-cow lead back in Notre Dame UDFA Josh Adams.
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As fans in the 215 probably already know, Adams is a 6-foot-2 power back from Warrington who ran wild at Central Bucks South before earning a coveted scholarship to don the golden dome as a member of the Fighting Irish.
After starting off his freshman season as a reserve, Adams received an uptick in snaps when the team’s starter, Tarean Folston, tore his ACL and quickly established himself as the team’s unquestioned running back of the future, running for 838 yards and six touchdowns on only 116 attempts.
Adams followed it up with a solid sophomore season (1126 yards from scrimmage), but in 2017 he went off to the tune of 1430 yards on the ground and nine trips to the end zone.
While these performances, including six 100-plus yard performances in the first eight games of the season, vaulted Adams’ name into the Heisman conversation, he, unfortunately, suffered an injury against Wake Forest and limped through the back half of his junior season, and into the NFL Draft.
He was not selected.
However, the Eagles and presumably Duce Staley liked what they saw when they brought the local prospect in for a pre-draft visit and signed him up for a shot to challenge for a roster spot before the start of the 2018 season.
Though he didn’t initially make the team, Adams bided his time on the practice squad and received a surprise elevation in Week 3 to help to alleviate the hole left by Jay Ajayi‘s season-ending injury.
But for Adams, playing time was volatile, to say the least.
After rushing the ball six times for 30 yards in an early win over the Indianapolis Colts, Adams received five carries for 16 yards over the next four weeks. While he did receive an uptick in playing time in the Eagles’ London victory over the Jaguars, running the ball nine times for 61-yards, he remained the second banana to Wendell Smallwood.
Over the Birds next two weeks, Adams appeared to have settled into a new role, rushing the ball seven times in each game for 47 and 53 yards respectively, but all that seemed to change in Week 12.
With their very season on the line against a G-Men squad with an incredibly porous defensive line, Doug Pederson went against his typical character and gave Adams 22 carries in an attempt to control the time of possession, and was rewarded with 84 yards and a touchdown on the ground.
Just think about that for a second, from Week 3-12 Adams rushed the ball 28 times for 207 yards, and in Week 13 he ran the ball for 22 times for 84 yards. While his YPC understandably went down with an increased workload, that’s pretty clear evidence that Adams is capable of shouldering a more significant load moving forward.
Which is good, because the team is going to need him now more than ever.
With three very winnable divisional games left on the schedule, and a pair of much less winnable non-divisional games with a couple of teams with a combined record of 18-4, the Eagles are going to have to commit themselves to pushing the ball on the ground, moving the chains, and hogging the time of posession.
Do the Eagles have enough offensive firepower to win a shootout? Probably not, but if they can controle the clock with a player like Adams running between the tackles, it will make the shots they do take mor eeffective, and allow Jim Schwartz‘s defense extra time to recover on the sidelines and remain fresh for longer stretches of the game.
Next. Philadelphia Eagles keep hope alive in Week 13. dark
While only time will tell what lies ahead for Pederson’s squad one thing is clear: If the Philadelphia Eagles are going to win out and earn a spot in the postseason, they are going to have to quite literally ride or die with Josh Adams as their lead back.