PHILADELPHIA – Good friend DeVonta Smith was back for Week 6 after missing two games and was useful. Dallas Goedert is a good buddy too, and a solid security blanket, and he was both of those things. The quarterback’s best friend, however, is supposed to be a running game.
The Eagles didn’t have one in their 25-14 home loss to the Carolina Panthers on Sunday. Tanner McKee could have used his best friend. Instead, he was forced to throw the ball 45 times. In just his third career start.
It’s like the coaches just said, “Hey Tanner, go win us this game.” For all the talk about everybody playing their part, the Eagles sure put a lot on McKee’s shoulders.
OK, I get it. The Eagles running back room is a lonely place. Tank Bigsby and Will Shipley are on injured reserve. Saquon Barkley has missed the last two games with a hamstring injury. Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, the Eagles lost Carson Steele to a shoulder injury in the first quarter.
Steele returned later. He took a couple of special teams reps but was then shut down for the second half. That left them with Dameon Pierce and Jaydon Blue, who was added to the roster on Saturday then parked on the bench when the offense took the field.
Eagles' depleted backfield explains only so much
Reduced to just those two players - one, really, because there was, surprisingly, nothing in the game plan for Blue - doesn’t mean you just stop trying to run the ball, even with an offensive line that is patchwork at best.
You just don’t throw in the towel when the team on the other side of the ball brought with it the next-to-last run defense in the NFL, allowing 168 yards per game.
The Eagles couldn’t be bothered with trying to dent it. Pierce ran it 12 times for 35 yards. McKee ran once for 0 yards.
So, that’s 45 passes to 13 runs. Drunken sailors have better balance.
Nick Sirianni tried to explain the imbalance between run and pass
Nick Sirianni was asked postgame for his thoughts on the imbalance. The coach said something about being behind 19-7 and needing to play catch-up.
“We had to go fast with, I don't know, 12 minutes left or something like that,” he said. “Two possessions; you only scored seven points at that point. You gotta go fast to give yourself a chance to score, which we went down and scored, and then get it back, and that was the mode that we had success on, so we did it again.”
Never mind that on the first play of the game, McKee dropped back and was sacked for an 11-yard loss. Buried in a hole, two more pass plays were dialed up, including one on third-and-21. Neither worked, and they punted.
On their next series, the Eagles threw three more times, one of which was a 3-yard loss to Makai Lemon. That led to another punt. They threw four straight times on their third possession with enough success to at least get a first down.
They threw or tried to throw on their first 10 plays when the score was 0-0 and 3-0.
McKee was asked about playing without a quarterback’s best friend, too. He “um-ed” his way through the answer.
“I'm a quarterback,” he said, mixing in a couple of ‘ums’, “I am excited to execute the play that is called (more 'ums'). I love slinging the ball around. I know I can be better with things like that. I personally, I don't see that as a terrible thing.”
It’s not a winning formula to throw 45 times and run the ball 13 times. Not in the NFL. The best teams like balance in their offense. The Eagles do, too. They’ve shown that to be the case during the last five years when they’ve been to two Super Bowls and won a lot of games.
Sirianni relented a bit later in his answer about the imbalance.
“Obviously, right now we're not running the ball the way we want to,” he said. “You do whatever you gotta do to try to win the game. That's what that game called for. Obviously, we didn't win, but that's what that game called for, and there's circumstances that go to that.”
Barkley could be McKee's best friend, and getting him back could do wonders, but it's still not clear when that will be.
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