Eagles Snap Counts: DeMarco Murray and Miles Austin get benched against Patriots

Here are the player snap counts from the Philadelphia Eagles' win over the New England Patriots.

The following players were ruled inactive prior to the game: Miles Austin, Thad Lewis, Cedric Thornton, Ryan Mathews, Denzel Rice, Tanner Hawkinson, Barrett Jones.

The following player(s) were active but did not play: Mark Sanchez.

OFFENSE

NOTES:

The Eagles made a few big changes that contributed to this win. First, they kept Miles Austin inactive as a healthy scratch. He's been so ineffective that he's just not worth playing. The Eagles kept Jonathan Krause active in his place. Krause only had one catch for two yards.

Another big move was the Eagles' decision to essentially bench DeMarco Murray. The $42 million running back only played 14 snaps in Philadelphia's win. He ran the ball eight times for 24 yards (3.0). Meanwhile, Darren Sproles had 15 carries for 66 yards (4.4) and Kenjon Barner had nine for 39 (4.3). Too often has Murray been slow and ineffective. The Eagles made the right call by getting away from him in this game. It'll be interesting to see how the rotation works out moving forward. Chip Kelly suggested the Eagles were merely trying to get the team's smaller running backs matched up against New England's bigger linebackers, but we'll see if that was the real reason Murray didn't play much.

Elsewhere, the entire offensive line playing together through the whole game. That's big.

Zach Ertz took the most snaps of any skill player. This was his first game back since suffering a concussion in Week 12.

DEFENSE

NOTES:

Rookie cornerback Eric Rowe played nearly all of the team's defensive snaps in his first NFL start at cornerback. He seemed to hold up pretty well.

2014 fifth round pick Ed Reynolds got a lot of playing time as the team's nickel safety. He's basically replaced Chris Maragos in that role.

Kiko Alonso played the most snaps of any inside linebacker. He was erratic, as usual.

Vinny Curry played 55 snaps, which is a lot more than the Eagles usually give him. They really wanted to take advantage of his pass rushing skills in this one. The fact that the Patriots didn't really have a running game allowed them to maximize Curry's best ability.

Brandon Bair played for the first time since Week 3 since Cedric Thornton was out due to injury.

Jaylen Watkins got a few defensive snaps in his first game back with the Eagles.

SPECIAL TEAMS

NOTES:

Nothing out of the ordinary here.