What Made Buck Special?

^{- Posted by Derek -}

It's been fun the past couple days to watch the local Eagles beat writers start popping up again, like hibernating bears blinking their way into the sunlight, wondering what they missed. 

You know, guys, covering the Eagles is easy if you only do it when there's, like, news.  It's totally extreme doing it when nothing's going on.

But as with the first robin of the spring, the re-population of the Eagles page on philly.com is a sign of things to come.  We're only a few days away from training camp, folks, and then it's just the PUPing of guy we might want to stash, the anointing of the TCD, the usual assortment of injuries and the one surprise cut before we get some real football.

I can't wait.

Here's the question of the day.  Everyone is talking about how key LeSean McCoy's development is going to be for the Eagles, especially if Westbrook isn't 100 percent.  We've heard a lot about how hard it was for guys like Lorenzo Booker, Tony Hunt, Ryan Moats and even Brian Westbrook to contribute in their first seasons (or ever, depending on the guy).  That's cool, but what I'm more interested in is a different question.

Why was Correll Buckhalter so successful in his first season as an Eagles running back?

Take a look at his career numbers.  Buck defied recent Eagles history by making his first season his best.  Amazingly, his first year rushing line of 129 / 586 / 4.5 / 2 compares quite favorably with the combined rookie (Westbrook, Hunt, Moats) or first-year (Booker) contributions of 131 / 540 / 4.1 / 4.

The question is why. 

Clearly it's not just a talent issue.  Buck's a talented running back, but he's not Brian Westbrook. 

I think we can also dismiss familiarity with the offense -- a favorite explanation of why DeSean was so successful -- since Buckhalter played in the Nebraska option attack that rarely saw the quarterback standing still in a traditional pocket.

It could be the "football intelligence" thing Hofmann was talking about yesterday.  That was certainly the knock on Moats, although some of the things I've read since he left about his off-field activities make it harder to believe he's not that bright. 

And quite frankly I think waaaaay too much is made of how hard blitz pick-up is for a running back.  If a dude comes free up the middle, you block him.  If someone's looping around the outside, you block him.  If two guys are coming, you take the guy with the shorter path and yell at your QB to get the $#@! down.  It's not brain surgery.  And it's certainly a lot easier than the stuff wide receivers have to do in terms of adjusting routes on the fly as a defense disguises and shifts its coverages.

My theory?  It comes down to two things: 

1)  Ability to play the game.  If you can play, you can play.  If you can't, you can't.  Nothing we've seen from Moats or Hunt since they left the Eagles has suggested they were in the former category at the NFL level.  Sadly.

2)  Opportunity.  In 2001, Duce was coming back off the Lisfranc injury and then almost immediately hurt his shoulder.  He missed three of the first eight games and only carried the ball 30 times in the other five.  He also sat out game 16 since the Eagles had already clinched.  Fully 101 of Buck's 129 carries came in those nine games when he was really the only option.  Once Duce was back, Buck returned to the bench. 

The same thing happened last year with DeSean.  Yeah, we can tell stories about how hard he worked and how much veteran help he received, but if Kevin Curtis doesn't get hurt, the Eagles work him in slowly, he focuses mostly on punt returns, and it might be December before he's really seeing much time.  But because they had no choice but to throw him out there and because of his prodigious talents, he had success right away.

This is the Eagles' pattern, and not just at the offensive skill positions.  We saw the same thing with Brodrick Bunkley.  Yes, he showed up late and out-of-shape and never really caught up, but on the other hand the defensive line was getting destroyed up the middle that year and still JJ wouldn't put him on the field. 

This extreme reluctance to play young guys -- and then the quick hook if they screw anything up while they're out there -- is one of the most legitimate complaints you can make about this coaching staff.  Their approach works overall, but you have to wonder about the advisability of keeping a guy off the field in some situations until you're sure he can perform well in all situations.

So back to LeSean McCoy, what does that tell us about this year?  It seems pretty simple, really.  If Westbrook can go, he's the guy.  McCoy will get some time in laughers or if BW needs a breather, but heaven forbid he makes a rookie mistake like blowing a blocking assignment or putting the ball on the ground.  That'll get him nailed to the bench for two weeks, even though it's precisely that kind of experience he needs in September and October so he can help us in December and January.

On the other hand, if Westbrook can't go, then McCoy will have the entire load dropped on him.  And if he screws up, well, too bad, it's not like Lorenzo Booker is a viable back-up plan.  They'll keep running him out there.

Which means whether he succeeds or fails will come down to just one thing:  talent.  And fortunately for McCoy -- and us -- he's got that in spades.

Understanding the Run Game Problems

I think there's an understandable misconception among Eagles fans regarding the source of our team's problems running the football.  Despite a number of extremely high-profile short yardage rushing failures, the problem this year hasn't really been the first four yards.  It's been the next six.

To see what I mean, take a quick look at the official NFL rushing stats.  The first thing that will catch your eye of course is the team ranking: 24th.  The yards per carry stat is almost as bad.

But look over to the columns on the right that show the number of runs over more than 20 or 40 yards.  The Eagles have just two of the former and none of the latter (and one of those 20+ was a DeSean Jackson end around).  Last year the Eagles went 17 and 1 in those categories, giving them the third-most 20+ carries in the league. 

Another way of looking at the same numbers can be found here, on STATS Inc.'s table of "big play" rushes.  The Eagles have no one on that list. 

Finally, slide over to Football Outsiders for a minute, where their offensive line stats strip out the long runs to give a better sense of the first-level blocking.  Despite the debacles of the past couple weeks, the Eagles are actually middle of the pack on those numbers -- well above their performance in the traditional statistics.

So what's changed:

• Wide receivers -- Reggie Brown, Hank Baskett and Jason Avant are three of the toughest-blocking WRs in the league.  Curtis puts in the effort.  Brown's been out much of the year and replacements Jackson and Lewis don't have the size to really stay on guys.  This could have some effect on the margins.
• Fullback -- There's an idea that fullbacks only matter in short-yardage situations.  That's not true at all.  A good fullback can run a kick-out block on an end, which allows the tackle to either block down or immediately go to the linebackers.  On a typical lead play, the fullback can also be the one who makes the critical LB block that takes a run from a three-yard plop to an eight-yard gash.  We don't have a fullback.
• Shawn Andrews -- This is a biggie.  Andrews is bar none the best second-level blocker in the NFL.  I haven't seen anyone else around the league who is better at getting an immediate chip on a DT and then hopping to the next level to clear out the linebacker. 

So here's a quick-and-dirty sketch of how the Eagles typically would run something like this (in a play where the FB goes to an LB and only showing playside):

If the RG can't make that combo block on the MLB -- or if he makes it at, rather than past, the LOS -- and if the FB isn't strong enough to root that SLB out of the hole -- perhaps diving at his legs to chop him down but not creating space -- then everything compresses and there's much less space to break anything past the point of attack. 

Is this what we're seeing every play?  No, not at all, I just made that one up.  And you can't blame the fullback for all the plays we run out of one or split-back sets.  But there's no question that something in the run game is broken and despite a number of high-profile stuffs, it doesn't really seem to be primarily a first-level problem.

Does Booker Add Anything?

We're at that point in the offseason where every year we all try to convince ourselves that this will be the year the Eagles change the way they use their running backs.  We've all pretty much given up on having them run the ball more, which then leads to the next point -- using more than one of them at the same time.

We do this every single year.  New guy comes in, we talk about how the Eagles could create some mismatches by using them both at the same time ... then nothing changes, Westbrook carries the whole load, and the other guys only come out when Brian needs a breather.

Which is why I'm having a hard time believing that Lorenzo Booker is going to make this big an impact this year:

And the running backs -- all of them -- are going to be front and center in the equation. We don't know how many halfbacks the Eagles will keep -- Tony Hunt and Ryan Moats are still very definitely in the big picture right now. In one vision, the offense goes through the backs. How many times in a game will Westbrook and Booker play at the same time and force the defense to shift where it doesn't want to go?

Talk all you want about McNabb, or about the wide receivers and debate how effective this offense is going to be. Me, I'm staring at what could be a special situation at halfback.  

Let's look at the history there.  Have the Eagles at any point in the last few seasons really used two halfbacks at the same time as anything more than a gimmick?  Moats?  Nope.  Hunt?  Nope.  Buckhalter, the one guy they actually trust to put out there?  Rarely. 

It's gotten to the point where the Eagles so seldomly go to something like a split back formation that when they do it down near the end zone, the whole defense starts screaming: "Shovel shovel shovel!"

But maybe this is the year that changes.  What if the Eagles do decide to put Westbrook and Booker out there at the same time?  Well then someone else has to sit down.  And that someone else is going to be L.J. Smith, one of the receivers, or whoever wins the starting fullback job. 

You have to think that if it's the fullback, ok, that's an advantage in the passing game.  Although it does cut down on the number of blockers in the running game.  If it's L.J., maybe that's a net plus.  We'll just have to see how Booker compares to a finally-healthy-again Smith.  And if it's one of the receivers, well then either Booker is out of position -- if he lines up outside -- or we're talking about subbing him in for the #3 guy, whom we all hope at some point will be the explosive DeSean Jackson.  Not sure that's an advantage in either situation. 

So IF Booker plays at the same time as Westbrook and IF he's actually able to handle the blitz pickup responsibility that Buckhalter is so good at and IF he can function as a better receiver than LJ or DeSean, then maybe there's some net benefit there.  But it's hard to see it being that huge.

Of course, the other way Booker can get on the field is if Westbrook is on the sidelines.  But then he's not really adding anything, he's just replacing Westbrook's production.  And if Lorenzo isn't really much of a threat as a runner, how great is it having him out there?  Even if you're just going to use him as a pass-catcher, you're still looking at a significant dropoff from Westbrook not being in the game.

And if Westbrook gets hurt, God help us all, but most of all Donovan McNabb, who's going to be facing blitzes on 80 percent of the snaps each game.

All of which is to say that if Booker can play well enough to take a few touches a game away from Westbrook to try to keep the big guy fresh/healthy, then he's doing his job.  Anything beyond that is gravy.