The Philadelphia Eagles for the second week in a row, leave a very capable running back on the bench. Ryan Mathews has obviously fallen out of favor with head coach Doug Pederson who much obviously prefers Darren Sproles.
The Eagles continued to call Mathews the premier running back, until this week, This week the word was that Sproles was the #1 guy. Something the rest of us knew weeks ago. While Ryan seems to still be a short yardage end zone weapon, his use outside of that is very limited. This week, he even lost those snaps as Kenjon Barner stole a touchdown run from him.
[embedit snippet=”Ralph ads”]
Sproles continues to be the workhorse as he ran for 57 yards on 13 carries, only a tad lower than the 15 carries he had the last week.
Wendell Smallwood had more yards than Ryan, with 25 yards on 2 carries. Barner only had 3 carries but he had a touchdown to boot. That was his only carry of the game, he had 3 yards.
The former premier running back had only 5 carries for 15 yards. What did Mathews do to get himself such a decrease in carries? He fumbled the ball a couple of times. There was no running back fumble in this game, maybe keeping Ryan on the sidelines is cutting back on the fumbles. But is it wise?
The Eagles have a lot of football left to play and they need to figure out their backfield issues out very fast. The NFL waits for no one.
It all seems a little surreal that this situation seems almost déjà vu from last season when the premier running back was also benched, it didn’t help last year either.