Sanders has been a missing piece for too much of the season already. We know how good he is based on what he did as a rookie in both running the football and making big plays in the passing game. In the five games Sanders has played this season, he averaged more than 6 yards per carry, with a pair of 74-yard runs. Sanders hasn't been nearly as much of a factor in the passing game – 12 receptions, 91 yards, a 7.6-yard-per-catch average – and so as Pederson and the coaching staff discuss ways to tweak the offense, no matter how much, it has to begin with Sanders.
Only twice this season has Sanders had more than 20 touches. He has been slowed by a hamstring injury suffered in Training Camp and lately a knee injury from the Baltimore game that caused Sanders to miss the past two weeks. Boston Scott has done an admirable job taking over the heavy lifting in the backfield, but the Eagles miss Sanders. Maybe the best way to give the offense an identity is to build around Sanders and spin everything off of him.
Establishing Sanders and the running game means that Pederson has to commit to that and trust that his offensive line is going to give Sanders a chance. And it means that the Eagles need to create favorable matchups for Sanders in the passing game – something that is much easier to do with Fulgham and Reagor on the field making the defense account for them, and with Ertz and Goedert teaming up at tight end. Sanders is a player defenses have taken away in the passing game by chipping him, by slowing him down at the line of scrimmage, and by devoting extra coverage his way. That's easier to do when the Eagles have injuries at wide receiver and tight end. Being whole at wide receiver – including Jeffery – and having both Ertz and Goedert available makes Sanders that much more dangerous.
So much is going to be said about quarterback Carson Wentz and his performance in the second half of the season, and rightfully so. His first half was so unusual and so un-Carson like, and the Eagles really want to get him back on track. A way to do it – to improve his completion percentage and to give him higher-percentage throws – is to make Sanders more involved in both the running game and in the passing game. A better performance on first and second down will lead to more third-and-short situations. Having Sanders as a target on wheel routes and in the screen game and on backfield releases against slower linebackers is going to lead to big plays in the passing game.
That's the thought here. The Eagles need an offensive identity. They've scuffled along offensively for eight weeks. Now that they have some pieces closing in on playing, they can find out who they are very quickly. It begins by running the offense through Sanders, first in the running game and then in the play-action game and then as a target in the passing game. He has touched the ball all of 74 times in the first half of the 2020 season. That is a number that needs to skyrocket in the next eight games and if the Eagles are able to make that happen, you will see an offense that very much knows what it is – something that is going to be tough to stop down the stretch run of this season.
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November 06, 2020 at 12:19AM
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The case to: Make Miles Sanders focal point of offense - PhiladelphiaEagles.com
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