Philadelphia Eagles: Just run the ball, Miles Sanders or no Miles Sanders

For one beautiful, awe-inspiring drive, the Philadelphia Eagles‘ offense looked good.

They moved the ball effortlessly, picked up chunk yards through the air, and, most impressively of all, ran the ball at will.

And then? Disaster struck.

After riding Miles Sanders to a quick 7-0 start on an eight-play drive featuring three passes and five runs, the Eagles’ starting RB had to be carted off the field with an apparent ankle injury that kept him out of the remainder of the contest and puts his immediate future into question.

*sigh* In Philadelphia, nothing gold can stay.

The Philadelphia Eagles can’t give up on running the ball sans Sanders.

In a rare accomplishment you’ll seldom see in 2021, the Philadelphia Eagles actually outrushed the Las Vegas Raiders 135-119.

Now granted, Jalen Hurts was responsible for roughly half of those yards, which had been a bit of a trend through the first two months of the season, but in a league where running the ball is still incredibly valuable for both setting the tone of a contest and picking up reliable yards early in the downs the Eagles just haven’t force-fed enough touches to their running backs.

If Miles Sanders misses Week 8 – or heaven forbid, any longer – does anyone think Hurts won’t be the team’s leading rusher in every game he appears in? Barring a surprise 91-yard run that artificially inflates a running back’s total, that feels like a forgone conclusion.

Nick Sirianni, if you’re reading this, don’t do that.

Now I know the Eagles’ disinterest in running the ball is quite literally encoded into their makeup. They only have three running backs on their active roster, and all three double as receivers out of the backfield. The only throwback, “traditional” power rushing RBs the Eagles had in camp, Jordan Howard and Kerryon Johnson, were both waived before Week 1 and thus far haven’t logged a single offensive snap in the NFL this season.

Sidebar: For a head coach that likes to throw the ball as much as Sirianni, you’d think the Eagles would employ a running back like Howard who can help pick up the blitz. Considering running backs are only being targeted a handful of times per game, that feels like a weird oversight.

But what are the Eagles to do? Without Sanders, they’re left with a rookie rusher with seven games of experience under his belt and Boston Scott, the diminutive rusher who went from the second coming of Darren Sproles under Doug Pederson to an offensive afterthought with nine total touches to his credit on the season.

Easy: Just. Run. The. Ball.

If the Eagles want to push the power between the tackles, they could easily sign Josh Adams, trade for Marlon Mack, or even just elevate Jordan Howard from the practice squad. Want to procure something a bit more explosive? Phillip Lindsay has been criminally underutilized by the Houston Texans this season and would fit very well in Sirianni’s scheme.

Heck, maybe just run a few jet sweeps to take advantage of the speed of players like Quez Watkins and Jalen Reagor. Whatever it takes to take some pressure off of Hurts both as a runner and as an offensive facilitator in the hopes of bringing down his overall offensive usage rate, which ranks first overall in the league at an astounding 85 percent.

As crazy as it sounds, running the ball is a state of mind. You don’t always run the ball because it’s situationally advantageous or to exploit the clock in end-of-game situations but instead to establish a tone and keep an offense as multidimensional as possible. Running the ball begets heavier boxes, which in turn begets better downfield looks, and the optionality of a finely tuned run:pass ratio can present just enough doubt in a defender’s mind to create a crease. Miles Sanders or no Miles Sanders, the Philadelphia Eagles need to adopt that mentality.