Will Eagles finally get DeMarco Murray going?

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The Eagles are a quarter of the way through their schedule. They have not run the ball well or consistently. It has rightly become an area of concern, one the head coach is asked to address on a regular basis.

"It falls on everybody," Chip Kelly said at the NovaCare Complex on Thursday. "It falls on everybody. It falls on the play-calls. It falls on the play design. It falls on the offensive line. It falls on the receivers. It falls on the quarterback. It falls on — the entire offense contributes to our success or non-success. It’s not an individual sport. This isn’t tennis. This isn’t golf. You just can’t say, 'It's this guy’s fault.' It’s not that way. It’s not the way the sport is set up. It’s not the way it’s ever been set up."

He’s not wrong. Everything he said is true. Football is complicated and there are all sorts of variables when trying to figure out why something works or doesn’t work. A year ago, the Eagles had the ninth-most rushing yards. This season, the Eagles haven’t been nearly as good. They’ve been much, much worse, in fact. Only three teams have fewer rushing yards. A lot of people are responsible for that drop-off. The injuries certainly haven’t helped. But, ultimately, two men will take the most blame.

The Eagles swapped LeSean McCoy for Kiko Alonso in the offseason. They thought Frank Gore would be the backfield replacement — until Gore bailed and fled to Indianapolis. That’s when Kelly gave DeMarco Murray the hard sell and stole him away from the Cowboys. Kelly the coach raved about Murray being a north-south, one-cut runner. Kelly the GM gave Murray a fat contract. The offensive line and the receivers and the quarterback and so many other people are responsible for the run game’s futility so far, but none of them signed Murray. More than anyone else, Kelly and Murray will take the most heat if the running game continues to struggle. And they should.

Murray was the league’s leading rusher a year ago. This year he’s the league’s leading question mark. What happened to Murray, and why can’t he get going in an Eagles offense that’s supposed to be dynamic and dangerous?

In the three games he’s played, Murray hasn’t carried the ball more than 13 times. With the Cowboys last season, he rushed the ball at least 19 times in every outing. This year he has a grand total of 47 rushing yards. In his first three games last season, Murray had 385 rushing yards. Big difference. Noticeable difference. Troublesome difference, especially when you’re 1-3 and your biggest offseason free agent on the offensive side of the ball is making a lot of money for very little production.

“The big misconception is DeMarco was hurt and didn’t play against the Jets and didn’t practice a ton last week,” Kelly said. “We’re trying to get him back up to speed. He didn’t carry the ball — he carried the ball zero times against the Jets because he was hurt. Then he didn’t practice every day last week. So we didn’t know how much of a volume we could have with him.”

After the loss in Washington, Murray said he’s not getting the ball enough. The emerging narrative is that Murray is a “volume runner” who needs somewhere between 18 to 22 carries to be effective. At present, 18 to 22 carries in a single game would represent somewhere between 62 and 75 percent of his workload for the entire season so far. It’s hard to imagine that happening.

"I would love to get everybody in the right lather, but when we’re not having success running the ball at all, then it’s tough to say, 'Hey, we’re going to make sure we get him 22 carries and he’s lathered up,'" Kelly said.

For his part, Kelly said he doesn’t “know what a volume runner is,” but he does know this much: “If you have 22 carries for zero yards,” Kelly said, “then you better call another play.”

Interesting statement, there. You can translate it for yourself, but it seems Kelly was taking some of the blame for the play-calling and putting some of the blame on Murray for failing to do what Kelly has been harping on these past few weeks: execute.

Even with a banged up offensive line, this weekend’s game represents a good opportunity for Murray and the Eagles’ run game. The Saints have allowed the sixth-most rushing yards this season. That’s the good news for Murray and Kelly and the Eagles — to the extent that there can be good news for a 1-3 team. The question, like it’s been for the first quarter of the season, is whether Murray and Kelly and the Eagles will take advantage of their opportunity, or whether they’ll be forced to once again explain what went wrong on the ground.

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