Nick Sirianni hints at how he'll use Eagles' fleet of running backs

One of the most intriguing questions facing the 2023 Eagles is how Nick Sirianni and new offensive coordinator Brian Johnson will deploy the Eagles’ newly shaped stable of running backs.

One thing is certain: It will look awfully different.

The last four years, Miles Sanders has been the Eagles’ bell-cow back, and even though he’s missed significant time with injuries he’s been the clear No. 1 back since the middle of 2019, when Jordan Howard’s season ended with a shoulder injury.

From that point through the end of last year’s regular season, Sanders had 633 carries and Boston Scott had the next-most on the team, with 259 – most while Sanders was out. 

Only three times in Sanders’ entire four-year stay with the Eagles was there a regular-season game where he had at least 10 carries and another running back had more. All three were in 2019, two of them in the first month of Sanders’ career.

So for about 1 ½ years under Doug Pederson and the last two years under Nick Sirianni, Sanders has been the undisputed The Guy.

Then everything changed. 

Kenny Gainwell supplanted Sanders as the lead back in the postseason, the Eagles made no attempt to re-sign Sanders when he hit free agency, Sanders signed a four-year, $25 million deal with the Panthers and the Eagles quickly added veterans Rashaad Perry and D'Andre Swift to the running back roster. 

What does it all mean?

Nobody knows. 

Even Sirianni.

“I’m OK having a committee, I’m OK with one guy getting the carries, too,” he said in a recent interview. “I really am. Whatever’s working, whatever's going (well). 

"We’ll say at times we’re going to go here and then a guy gets hot and we'll roll with him. For example, Kenny in the playoffs a little bit last year. He got more touches than he had gotten because he was running it really well. 

“I’m content with whatever’s working and playing the best guys. I love the depth that we have to be able to rotate guys and keep guys fresh. I like when you have a guy that can do all of it, I like when you have a guy that you can segment it. There’s so many different ways to do it.”

Swift is the most experienced of the group and the best receiver. 

Penny has that monster 5.7 career rushing average, tied for highest in NFL history by a running back. 

Gainwell is young and versatile and coming off a promising postseason. 

And then there’s Boston Scott, who plays sparingly but is unstoppable in short yardage and has 17 touchdowns in limited duty the last four years.

All four backs have had terrific moments in their careers. None has ever been a lead back over a full season. 

Swift has rushed for over 500 yards every year of his career but never more than 617. Penny ran for 749 yards and an NFL-best 6.3 yards per carry in 2021 but has played in only eight other games since 2020. Gainwell has averaged only 3 ½ carries per game in the regular season. Scott always seems to produce when called on but has never rushed for 400 yards.

There’s a lot of talent here. But also so many questions. Can Swift and Penny stay healthy? Can Gainwell handle a larger role? Where does Scott fit in?

Making it even more intriguing is the fact that only Gainwell is signed beyond 2023. 

The Eagles used a running back committee with brilliant results in the 2017 postseason with Jay Ajayi, Corey Clement and LeGarrette Blount combining for 556 scrimmage yards, including 255 in the Super Bowl. The last time the Eagles used a rotation for an entire regular season was 2016 with Ryan Mathews, Wendell Smallwood and Darren Sproles, although that was really a product of injuries.

Why was the Blount / Ajayi / Clement rotation so effective? Because they were all so different, and defenses never knew what was coming. Blount was a power runner, Ajayi fast and elusive, Clement a terrific receiver and tough runner.

That’s why the old Three-Headed-Monster of 2003 worked so well. Brian Westbrook, Duce Staley and Correll Buckhalter all had different strengths and complemented each other so well.

Sirianni’s plan?

Every game may be different. Every drive may be different. 

He’s going to make this up as he goes along depending on the opponent, the score, the down and distance and who’s got the hot hand.

“I guess it’s like this with the receivers and tight ends,” Sirianni said. “You have certain visions of routes that you want to run or you know how to attack a defense (with), and you don’t need one guy to do every one of them – you’d love for all the guys to be able to do every one of them – but you just need them to, ‘Hey, how do we get this, this, this, this and this done?’ Well, he can do this, he can do that, he can do this, this guy can do that one too. 

“It’s the same thing with the running backs. So however that happens. And if you don’t have a section where they can do it, you cross that part out of your playbook and maybe you add something different. 

“But however that takes place, I don’t really care how it happens as long as those boxes can be checked.”