Sports and Rants with Brett and Pants : McCoy No More

LeSean “Shady” McCoy is in his sixth season of his career. Before this season started he would be considered as a premiere back in the league. He put the spotlight on himself when he said that he would reach 2,000 yards. The Eagles would never need that much production from him. Chip’s offensive playbook is predicated on the run. It builds on the run by getting the ball into space and letting athletic offensive weapons be the true offensive playmakers. When the running game is struggling, it puts unnecessary pressure on the quarterback. It is highly unlikely that Eagles would give McCoy enough carries to get 2,000 yards, so why would he think he would get their?

McCoy’s mouth is bigger than the milestone of reaching 2,000 yards. He is all talk and no bite. LeSean is in the prime of his career; however he has played better in previous years. Number 25 on the Eagles cannot carry a football team. This year is the first year that he is without DeSean Jackson. Jackson was a deep threat that would force the safeties to back away from the line of scrimmage, which would give McCoy more room to run. With the safety protecting from a deep throw to Jackson it also gave the offensive line one less guy to block and one less tackler to take down LeSean. A deep field threat would help McCoy reach his goal of 2,000 yards.

Just like how McCoy is all talk and no bite, he is all dance but skills. McCoy is tremendous in the open field. That is when his swift cut on a dime move is the most effective. However, in the backfield he thinks he can dance to past tacklers. McCoy can dance but he cannot boogey. His cutback move is nice, but it would be beautiful if he had skills to go along with it. The only reason he needs to use his cutback move in the open space is because he is too slow to run past tacklers. He does not have the second gear speed to blow by the secondary during a breakaway. More often than not he gets tackled from behind because it is hard to juke away from a tackler when he cannot be seen. If McCoy had an extra burst, maybe he would be able to achieve the elite 2,000 yard milestone.

LeSean McCoy will never be considered an NFL great because he is not a mulch-dimensional back. One example of this is McCoy backing away from blitzers instead of pass blocking. Because of this Kelly no longer trusts McCoy at the goal line. Chris Polk is getting the carries. He tries to do too much. Chip Kelly traded for Darren Sproles, because Sproles can do more than just run through the tackles. LeSean is not a team player and would be more valuable to the Eagles if he was. McCoy is an overconfident player that will never be considered as a top tier running back.

Shady is nothing more than a 20 cent tipping low life. He is arrogant and for whatever reason it seems as if he can only perform well when it is cold. His playing style allows him to take less abuse and would likely provide him with a longer career. He will have more years to attempt to get to 2,000 yards. Maybe he will be like Rex Ryan saying each year the Jets would win the Superbowl, except for 2,000 yards. If he does somehow get 2,000 yards, it may not be with the Eagles. It seems that Kelly has been straying away from McCoy. Let’s hope McCoy’s pompous attitude is crushed by his poor performance this season.

- Pants