tr1
January-26th-2006, 04:09 PM
Eagles' ground swell
Eagles coach says balance important on offense
By LES BOWEN
bowenl@phillynews.com
MOBILE, Ala. - Like you, Andy Reid has been watching the NFL playoffs. And it hasn't escaped his notice that all the teams playing last weekend in the conference championships featured balanced offenses that run the ball effectively.
The Eagles' coach isn't looking to radically change his team's approach, but he did acknowledge yesterday that success in the post-Terrell Owens era is going to require more of an emphasis on the ground game.
"We've got to get back to what we did a few years ago, where we were running it close to 50 percent of the time," Reid said yesterday as he prepared to leave Mobile, after watching 3 days of Senior Bowl practice. "The more you can keep it close to 50-50, the more you keep people honest defensively."
The Eagles' mix was more than 70-30 in favor of passing through the first half of last season, before Reid dismissed Owens and before quarterback Donovan McNabb finally sat down for sports-hernia surgery. The Eagles ran the ball more down the stretch, when they had fewer weapons.
Reid's Eagles have never really been 50-50 pass-run; the closest they've come was in 2002, the last time they had a 1,000-yard rusher (Duce Staley, 1,029 yards on 269 carries). That year they ran the ball 489 times (including 63 runs by McNabb, many of them designed as passing plays), and threw it 548 times. The last two seasons, the Eagles have run the ball fewer than 400 times (376 in 2004, just 365 last season) and thrown it considerably more than 500 (547 in 2004, a whopping 620 last season).
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/sports/13714456.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
Eagles coach says balance important on offense
By LES BOWEN
bowenl@phillynews.com
MOBILE, Ala. - Like you, Andy Reid has been watching the NFL playoffs. And it hasn't escaped his notice that all the teams playing last weekend in the conference championships featured balanced offenses that run the ball effectively.
The Eagles' coach isn't looking to radically change his team's approach, but he did acknowledge yesterday that success in the post-Terrell Owens era is going to require more of an emphasis on the ground game.
"We've got to get back to what we did a few years ago, where we were running it close to 50 percent of the time," Reid said yesterday as he prepared to leave Mobile, after watching 3 days of Senior Bowl practice. "The more you can keep it close to 50-50, the more you keep people honest defensively."
The Eagles' mix was more than 70-30 in favor of passing through the first half of last season, before Reid dismissed Owens and before quarterback Donovan McNabb finally sat down for sports-hernia surgery. The Eagles ran the ball more down the stretch, when they had fewer weapons.
Reid's Eagles have never really been 50-50 pass-run; the closest they've come was in 2002, the last time they had a 1,000-yard rusher (Duce Staley, 1,029 yards on 269 carries). That year they ran the ball 489 times (including 63 runs by McNabb, many of them designed as passing plays), and threw it 548 times. The last two seasons, the Eagles have run the ball fewer than 400 times (376 in 2004, just 365 last season) and thrown it considerably more than 500 (547 in 2004, a whopping 620 last season).
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/sports/13714456.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp