Over the last couple of months, the Eagles have become the best rushing team in football and they struck a nice balance with their top two backs on Tuesday.
In the 27-17 win over Washington, Miles Sanders and Jordan Howard split reps pretty evenly:
Miles Sanders: 35 snaps (49%)
Jordan Howard: 34 snaps (48%)
Kenny Gainwell: 6 snaps (8%)
On his weekly day-after appearance on WIP, head coach Nick Sirianni alluded to an injury that kept Sanders out late. But Sanders after the game said he felt fine. He has been dealing with a nagging ankle injury.
“I am coming off my injuries so they are probably sitting me out and resting me,” Sanders said. “We have three more games that we have to get right for, so just trying to do whatever I can each and every week to get back each week and play.”
NFL
The good news is that both top Eagles backs were effective on Tuesday night. Sanders carried the ball 18 times for 131 yards (7.3) and Howard had 15 for 69 (4.6) to give them 200 yards between the two of them.
There weren’t many snaps for Gainwell and Boston Scott’s only six snaps came on special teams.
Other offense notes
• Jalen Hurts and his entire offensive line played all 71 snaps.
• The Eagles utilized 12, 13 and 21 personnel packages on Tuesday and that shows up in the snap counts. Dallas Goedert played 66 of 71, while Jack Still got 38 snaps and Tyree Jackson got 16.
• At WR, DeVonta Smith led the group by a wide margin with 62. He was followed by Jalen Reagor (39), Quez Watkins (25), Greg Ward (22) and J.J. Arcega-Whiteside (11). Ward played his most snaps since the Detroit game, likely because Watkins missed most of the week on the COVID-19 list.
Defensive notes
• Darius Slay played all 55 snaps on defense and got one on offense. He didn’t have his best game in coverage but he’ll probably never stop talking about his offensive snap in the red zone.
• Rodney McLeod played 52 of 55 snaps and Anthony Harris played 44. The Eagles kept their rotation at safety going as Marcus Epps vultured 17 snaps.
• T.J. Edwards led the linebackers with 52, followed by Alex Singleton (45) and Genard Avery (19).
• On the D-line: Fletcher Cox (39), Derek Barnett (38), Josh Sweat (33), Javon Hargrave (31), Hassan Ridgeway (24), Milton Williams (23), Tarron Jackson (17), Ryan Kerrigan (15).
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