Eagles underutilization of Miles Sanders, Gainwell is historically shameful

If you turn on EA Sports’ Madden NFL 22 game, and you find yourself in the exhibition mode with the Philadelphia Eagles, you can actually hear the crowd chant “run the ball” and offer a mock cheer if you do so after ignoring the ground game for too long.

Okay, maybe it hasn’t gotten that bad yet, but here’s what can be stated. Calling the Eagles unbalanced on offense is a HUGE understatement.

Every game seems to unfold in a similar fashion. The screen game doesn’t work, and it’s run when there’s no visible blitz (the reason you’d think they’d run the screen game in the first place).

The Birds then fall behind early. They try a few deep passes. Those don’t connect, and if the running game doesn’t produce immediate results, Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni and offensive coordinator Shane Steichen abandon the running game entirely.

The next thing you know, Philadelphia is even further behind, and they have to pass on every down in an attempt to get back in the game. There isn’t an Eagles fan on Planet Earth that doesn’t know how that’s been working out.

The Eagles’ underutilization of Sanders and Gainwell is producing embarrassing results.

Here’s some historical context for you. Through the Philadelphia Eagles’ first six games, they have just 78 rushing attempts from the running back position. That’s the second-lowest rushing total in that category in the game’s history. The only team that has ever had fewer is the 2014 Jacksonville Jaguars. They had 69 rushing attempts through six games in 2014.

Philadelphia has no excuse. They have two of the more gifted young tailbacks in the league, Miles Sanders and Kenneth Gainwell.

In 2020, Sanders had three runs of 74 yards or more. He also had runs of 56 yards in 2019 versus the Washington Football Team in Philly’s third game of that season and a 65-yard touchdown dash that shifted the momentum versus the Buffalo Bills just six games later.

So far in 2021, he’s been given a mere 57 carries over the course of the Eagles’ first six games. 28 of those came in the first two weeks. The man that we thought would be the second tailback on the depth chart, Boston Scott, has caught two passes, but he hasn’t been given a single carry over the course of the first six games.

That brings us to Gainwell (Philly only has three running backs on the active roster). The Eagles struck gold in the 2021 NFL Draft by landing Kenneth. He was a fifth-rounder the Birds selected with the 150th-overall selection but also someone everyone thought deserved to go earlier.

The eyeball test tells us he has the goods, but here’s another problem. The Eagles’ coaching staff won’t let him run the ball either. He has 21 carries through six games. Again, that’s embarrassing.

During a recent press conference, Shane Steichen said that “Miles is a heck of a back and we’ve got to get him going”. It sounds good, but we won’t hold our breath. We’ll believe it when we see it, but don’t expect to see more wins until the Eagles are more intentional about being balanced on offense.