Frustration with Eagles’ struggling run game spikes after recent explanations

No one said the paths of the defending Super Bowl champions would be easy, even if that's the last thing the Philadelphia Eagles want to call themselves. The king of the hill gets everyone's best shot. They don't get any breaks, nor will they benefit from an opposing team's letdown performance.

The Eagles are the measuring stick. They're everyone's litmus test. Knowing that, one would expect that they, at a minimum, put the proper amount of work into practice. More on that in a second...

Frustration continues to boil over as the Eagles' running game isn't just struggling. It now seems to be at rock bottom, digging a deeper ditch.

Never in a million years did any of us believe that an organization employing Saquon Barkley and Jeff Stoutland would struggle this much to run the ball. That's unfortunately where the Eagles are now. They can't build a 21-point lead and hammer the rock to salt games away. On third-and-two, they now elect to pass in hopes of gaining the necessary yardage.

The run-pass option doesn't work because the offensive line can't create holes. They can't use the play-action pass as often because no one respects the rushing attack.

There are no spoiler alerts here. By now, you all know what happened. Fred Johnson has started one game since we learned of Lane Johnson's injury, and he has already grown fatigued with what's happened.

Landon Dickerson, Jalen Hurts, and Nick Sirianni share varying but equally frustrating views of an ineffective Eagles running game.

"I don't know. I'm not a coach." That's what he said when asked why the Eagles' rushing attack struggled in Week 12. That echoes a familiar refrain birthed by Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown: That's a K.P. [offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo] question.

Coach Patullo wasn't available following the Eagles' collapse in Arlington or the day after, but the head coach, Nick Sirianni, was. So, the media asked him instead, and what we have now are slightly varying theories on the issues from him, Jalen Hurts, and Landon Dickerson.

"They gave us a defense that they rarely run, and we just didn't execute the game plan we had." Asked what defense, he said, "Just five-down fronts. It's not usually, typically something they were running a whole lot, and turns out that was their flavor of the day." Asked how the O-line can counter different schemes, Dickerson said, "I think a big thing is ... time on task. Obviously, you can't run every play to every defense during the week, so I think we really just have to hone in on having a game plan for every defense that a team has run, and every possible defense that they could run, and make sure that we can execute against all of them."

That comes from a postgame Jeff McLane report. He spoke with Landon Dickerson, and the Eagles' all-world left guard offered the most horrifying of responses.

It seems every week, we hear a player or coach offer similar responses: 'We practiced all week. The opposing team presented something we weren't ready for or didn't practice enough to prepare for. We wouldn't adjust. They won. We'll get better.'

Stop us if any of this sounds familiar. As expected, Jalen Hurts and Nick Sirianni were asked specific questions. They offered the following responses.

Time is running out. This seems broken. Repair doesn't seem possible, and to make matters worse, Nick Sirianni seems oblivious about how inefficiently his team and coaches are performing.

No, we don't expect him to blast his guys publicly, but this feels different. Based on the results, we have to ask whether the staff is sometimes over its head.

Jalen Hurts says this will get figured out. We trust that because we have heard that before, and that promise has always been kept. You'll have to bear with us, though. It has undoubtedly been a tough season, and nerves are frayed more than we would like.

This article originally appeared on Eagles Wire: Eagles’ run-game frustrations erupt after recent scheme explanations