The Eagles are 2-0, but their running game has been stuck in neutral.
Through two games, Philadelphia’s backs are averaging 3.7 yards per carry, and that number is padded by Saquon Barkley’s 42-yard burst in the opener against Washington. Remove the big play, and the picture gets even uglier. Against the Titans on Sunday, the backs managed just 24 carries for 66 yards, a 2.8-yard average.
The lack of explosiveness jumps off the page. On 42 carries, Eagles running backs have produced only one run of 10 yards or more.
They’ve also piled up just nine rushing first downs, with Jalen Hurts accounting for five of them. Barkley has two of those first downs, Tank Bigsby has two and Will Shipley has one.
There’s been plenty of traffic in the wrong direction, too. Out of those 42 running back carries, 20 have gone for two yards or fewer. That’s 48 percent of the workload going nowhere.
Even with Hurts adding 62 rushing yards on 12 carries, the Eagles sit 15th in rushing yards per game at 112.5 and 17th in yards per carry at 3.9.
Barkley’s availability is also unsettled after he took a stinger on the opening play Sunday. He came back for a few snaps in the second half, but didn’t get much going. Nick Sirianni said Monday he had no update on Barkley’s status or MRI results.
The Eagles still want to lean on the ground game, and they’re trying to do it through Sean Mannion’s wide zone scheme. But that style asks a lot from the offensive line, especially on the edge, and it hasn’t clicked yet. Landon Dickerson didn’t get movement in the opener, Cam Jurgens has had a rough time in both games, and Drew Kendall was thrown into his first meaningful NFL start and still has plenty to prove.
The interior numbers back that up. Among 98 interior linemen who have played at least 50 snaps, Jurgens is 76th in Pro Football Focus run-blocking grades, Dickerson is 85th and Kendall is 92nd.
That’s the core issue right now: the Eagles have backs who can do damage, but they’re not finding room to do it. Barkley has shown what he can bring, Bigsby averaged 5.9 yards per carry last year, and Shipley flashed with a 55-yard run in the 2024 NFC Championship Game. None of that has translated into consistent production so far.
“In the run game, like everything in football, it takes just collaboration from every piece,” Sirianni said Monday, after the Eagles improved to 2-0. “From coaching to playing.
It's not just on the backs or the o-line. I think when the run game's going really well, people tend to say, 'Hey, the backs and the o-line are doing really well.'
Well, it takes everybody. That is true, and then it also takes the tight ends and it takes the quarterback and it takes the wide receivers.
“So it is a full team effort and coaches as well, and we have to be better as a whole there. We're going to continue to work like crazy to (do that). We've found ways to win the first two games, but we know we're capable of being better in the run game.”
Philadelphia’s next two opponents offer a chance to clean it up. The Eagles visit the Bears on Monday night at Soldier Field before coming home to face the Rams at the Linc, and both defenses have struggled against the run.
Chicago ranks 26th in yards per carry allowed at 4.9 and 22nd in yards allowed per game at 122. The Rams are even looser, sitting 31st in yards per carry allowed at 5.8 and 30th in yards allowed per game at 174.
If the Eagles can’t get traction against those two, it’s fair to wonder where the turnaround is supposed to come from.
“I think there's elements of it being close,” Sirianni said. “We are close.
But it goes back to when you're close, it's never just one thing. It's the entire group working as a whole.
We have to be committed to it still and keep grinding away at it, but we know we have room to improve there in our run game.”
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