After a Week Three loss to the Cowboys that saw the Eagles hand the ball off to running backs three times, head coach Nick Sirianni’s resistance to running the ball led to a lot of criticism.
Sirianni isn’t hearing the same complaints now. The Eagles ran for 238 yards in Tuesday night’s win over Washington and they have now run for at least 175 yards in each of their last seven games. They are the first team with a streak of that length since the 1985 Bears.
While they haven’t been as dominant as that club, it’s proven to be a winning formula. They’ve gone 5-2 over that span to put themselves back in the playoff hunt and head coach Nick Sirianni credited “some gritty guys up front” with opening holes while noting everyone’s involved in the success. Running back Jordan Howard, who had 15 carries for 69 yards Tuesday, had a similar view.
“This is great. The offensive line does a great job,” Howard said in his postgame press conference. “The tight ends, receivers, and coaches - they put us in a great position and [quarterback] Jalen [Hurts] makes the right checks. They all just make our jobs easier to run. They [create] gigantic holes and it surprises you because it’s like there aren’t supposed to be holes that big in the NFL so it’s surprising but we’re not complaining about it. You just can’t have any hesitation especially in the NFL because that hole will close up very fast. So you have to hit it as soon as you see it.”
A rematch with the Giants is next up for the Eagles. Philly ran for 208 yards the last time the two teams met, but the Giants won 13-7 so the Eagles will be hoping for the same productivity with a different outcome.
