Eagles offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur is made available to the media every Tuesday to answer questions.
Not surprisingly, Shurmur was asked several questions Tuesday about DeMarco Murray, who got a season-low 14 snaps and just eight of the running backs' 32 carries in the win over the Patriots Sunday.
As much as he tried to be guarded, Shurmur’s responses are fascinating and actually quite revealing.
He didn’t give any indication that Murray’s role as the team’s lead ball carrier will be restored and spoke in much more glowing terms about Kenjon Barner, a Panthers castoff who began this season on the practice squad, than Murray, a former NFL rushing leader and Pro Bowler.
Murray’s role appears to have diminished, from a guy who led the NFL in rushing last year and got $21 million guaranteed from the Eagles as part of a $40 million contract to a guy who played only 23 percent of the Eagles’ offensive snaps Sunday.
In the Eagles’ upset win over the Patriots Sunday in Foxboro, Darren Sproles got 15 carries, third-most of his career and his most since 2009. And Barner got nine carries, most of his brief NFL career.
Murray was 8-for-24 for a 3.0 average, Sproles was 15-for-66 for 4.4 yards per carry, and Barner was 9-for-39 for a 4.3 average, although he did commit a late fumble.
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For the season, currently injured Ryan Mathews (5.7), Barner (4.6) and Sproles (3.8) all have higher per-carry averages than Murray, whose 3.5 mark is second-worst in the NFL.
Here’s a transcript of the questions directed at Shurmur Tuesday and Shurmur’s responses:
Q: “Who is your No. 1 running back?”
Shurmur: “We have a group of running backs that we feel good about putting in the game all the time.”
Q: Before last week, DeMarco Murray got the majority of the snaps but he got only 14 snaps and just eight carries against the Patriots. Does that indicate he’s no longer the No. 1 running back?
Shurmur: "That’s the way people lining up outside the building (see it). We’re very, very confident at what he can do running the football, and he’s actually had more snaps, right, than the other three guys combined over the course of the season. But I’ve said this all along, though, you’ve got to look at involvement and production over the course of the season. Some games you get a handful more, some games you get a handful less, and we felt like we were getting good production from the other guys. Inside-out, it’s not that big a deal to us who’s in there.”
Q: “Has he expressed any displeasure to the coaches about his role?”
Shurmur: “Nope, nope.”
Q: Is it a big deal to him?
Shurmur: “I don’t know, that’s a question for him.”
Q: Isn’t DeMarco an unusual situation though? He led the NFL in rushing last year, got a big contract, averaged 25 carries a game last year. Do you as coaches need to pull him aside and explain his role to him?
Shurmur: “I think what you’ve got to look at is we won a football game the other night against a really fine opponent, and he contributed in the game, and I think that’s the reality, so there should be some joy in that at least for a few hours. We play all the running backs, we all know that."
Q: I understand all that, but at what point do you have to explain the situation to him?
Shurmur: “Just put the guys in the game that will help us win the football game. We feel good about all the guys being in there.”
Q: Twelve games into the season, what’s your evaluation of DeMarco Murray’s performance so far?
Shurmur: “We’re going to do everything we can to be ready to play Buffalo. He helped contribute to a win the other day, just like for the two weeks prior, we all contributed to losing. But we found a way to win against a really fine opponent the other night, and all the 46 guys that were in the game and competed helped us do it. Period. Beyond that evaluation, I don’t know what ... “
Q: But what changed in your opinion of Murray to make him go from a guy who was the lead back to one who got only 14 snaps Sunday?
Shurmur: “The three other guys combined don’t have as many snaps as he has. So we’re talking about a one-game deal, right?”
Q: So it’s possible you guys could go back to Murray getting the bulk of the carries?
Shurmur: “We’re going to come out here and train and get ready to play Buffalo, and we’re going to put the guys on the field based on how they train and how we match up against Buffalo that give us the best chance to win that football game. And that’s not coach-speak or a cliché, that’s the reality.”
Q: What has Barner done to give you the faith that he can get crucial carries in the final minutes of a game?
Shurmur: “We’ve seen him on the practice field, he’s trained well, and he’s got juice in there where he’ll hit it and he can run really fast. Any time he’s got the ball in his hands we feel like he can score a touchdown.”