The 'N'-Headed Monster

As you may have guessed by yesterday's Tony Huntathon, I'm very excited by the addition of the former Penn State battering ram to the Philadelphia Eagles' backfield. 

I'm not the only one, though, with a number of fans, message board posters and local columnists/commentators suggesting that the selection of Hunt (and to a lesser extent, Nasti Nate Ilaoa) means the Eagles may return to the "three-headed monster" running back committee that worked so well during the 2003 season, Duuuuuce's last year with the team. 

Of course it's not just the draft.  After McNabb went down last season, Reid famously turned the playcalling over to his difficultly-named offensive coordinator, who shelved the high-flying passing game and based the Eagles' attack around the combination of Brian Westbrook and one badass offensive line.  (Or so the story goes.)  With McNabb's health again an issue in 2007, it makes sense for the Eagles to shift to a more ball-control gameplan that emphasizes the running game and keeping the quarterback upright. 

To try to predict how that gameplan might play out next year, I thought it would be interesting to look at how the Eagles rushing attack has evolved over the last few years.  Some of what I found was sort of surprising to me, suggesting that my memory of past seasons isn't as good as I thought it was.

Here are a couple of graphs to start.  The first shows the distribution of rushing attempts by all Eagles running backs since 2001.  I stripped out carries by quarterbacks and receivers because I wanted to get a sense of how the true running game had functioned.  The second graph shows the distribution of yards gained, which -- not surprisingly -- looks very similar (click the thumbnails to expand).

   

A couple things stand out right away.  The first is that you can see why Duuuuuuce saw the writing on the wall when he decided to leave.  He always said he wanted to go play in a system where he would be more of a traditional running back, but he could also see the (young) talent around him and where that was headed.

The second thing I found interesting is that it doesn't really matter whether or not Buckhalter plays.  If he's healthy, he gets a fair number of carries and does a good job as the number three option (Westbrook has been options #1 and #2 for a couple of years).  But when he's been hurt, the Eagles have done fine plugging in a number of other guys as the change-of-pace back.  Look at how relatively flat the line is that bounds the bottom of the graph containing the contributions of Buckhalter, Levens, Moats and everybody else.

In fact, there hasn't even been as much variation as I think most people probably believe.  If you controlled for TO's ego in 2004 and Mike McMahon's incompetence in 2005, most of that variation gets washed out.  Instead of rushing attempts or yards, I think there's another reason why most people think 2003 was so different:

Rushing TDs
2001	4
2002	6
2003	20
2004	7
2005	7
2006	9

Yeah, that's probably it.

It is kind of weird that Duuuuuuce's carries just sort of ... disappeared.  After he left following the 2003 season, about half of his carries went to Westbrook and the others just vanished into thin air. 

Last year, those carries all reappeared, just like they'd never been gone, and went right to Westbrook.  But that's a situation I can't see repeating itself next season.  The Eagles ran Westbrook into the ground last year because they had no choice, it was either give the ball to Brian or pack in the season.  This year, they're probably going to work very hard to lighten his load, particularly in the early portion of the season, in an attempt to keep him fresh and healthy for the postseason.

Buckhalter has already said that Mornhinweg promised him more carries this season.  That makes sense, now that he's had a year to prove he's all the way back from three devastating knee injuries. 

If the Eagles truly make a 2003-level commitment to running the football, they'll need to divide up about 391 carries (up from last year's 354).  Correll had 129 carries his rookie season and 126 two years later.  Last year he ended up with 83, so it's fair to guess they might try to get him back to the 125 range.  That takes 40 carries from Westbrook, getting him down from last year's high of 240 to a still-substantial 200.  Westbrook's previous high was 177, and I honestly believe the Eagles would be more comfortable keeping him in that range if possible.  So we'll call it 175. 

That gets us to 300 carries for Buck and Westbrook and leaves about 90 for the rest of the running backs on the roster.  Barring injury, I don't think there's much doubt that the "rest of the running backs" = "Tony Hunt."  Based on a 4.5 yard-per-carry average (not unlikely with this offensive line), he's probably looking at a 400-yard rookie season, which I bet would suit this team just fine.  He may even get his share of touchdowns if they start using him down by the goal line as their slam it up the gut back. 

The last graph is therefore a projection, based on those numbers, of how the Eagles rushing attack could look this year:

Man, that's beautiful.  Now we just need those guys to stay healthy.

Oh, and be careful how early you draft Westbrook in your fantasy league next year.