AS WE ENTER the annual reassessment phase of the Eagles' season - it really does happen every fall - the suspicion (based on history) is that the Eagles will try to win ugly here for a couple of weeks. They will run the ball a little bit more, and they will give quarterback Donovan McNabb some easier throws, and they will lean on a better-than-expected defense, and they will be very happy with 17-14.
That is the expectation as another drive up the placid New Jersey Turnpike looms.
It might even work, against the Jets this week and for the next couple of weeks. It is not the answer, though, not really and not for the long term.
Because you can fixate on the running game all you want, but the 1-3 Eagles aren't going anywhere this year if they don't start throwing the ball better.
I know, I know, the run/pass ratio is Our Municipal Obsession - and I am often as obsessed as anyone. This year, though, not so much. It just seems to miss the point. The NFL remains a throwing league, a league where the scoring is done through the air, and the Eagles' passing game is atrocious right now - and thank heaven for the Detroit Lions, or the passing game would be whatever adjective is worse than atrocious.
You can make the argument that more running might help with play-action passing, and that is fair. But the Eagles are already running the ball more than they have since 2002, the year when McNabb broke a leg and the second-best defense in the league carried them home. (Note: They don't have the second-best defense in the league anymore.)
At 26.5 carries per game, they are even running a bit more than the three-headed monster year of 2003, when Duce Staley, Brian Westbrook and Correll Buckhalter lugged the team around while McNabb battled ineffectiveness and then a thumb injury.
They can run more now, certainly - and especially if Andy Reid has determined that the situation is so dire on offense that they can't get it blocked well enough in the passing game, or that the quarterback still isn't far enough back from knee surgery, or that Westbrook's abdominal strain is just too limiting for him to provide his customary spark. (Westbrook practiced again yesterday, for whatever that is worth.)
But all of that is just nibbling at the edges of the real problem. That is, their passing game has been awful.
