Eagles need to prove that they can get back to running the ball against the Saints

The Eagles run game was impacted with Jalen Hurts sidelined with a shoulder sprain against the Cowboys. And not in a good way.

The Cowboys scored 20 points off four Eagles turnovers, an issue that we haven’t seen too often with Hurts as starter. Two of the turnovers coming from two lost fumbles with running backs involved.

Early in the second half, running back Boston Scott failed to hold on to the ball during handoff from Gardner Minshew which resulted in Cowboys’ safety Jayron Kearse recovering the ball leading to a touchdown.

Then, Miles Sanders fumbled (for the second time this season) on a first-and-10 with 2:19 remaining in the fourth quarter. Cowboys’ nose tackle Carlos Watkins fell on the ball at the Eagles’ 21.

On episode 10 of The EPA Podcast, special guest Jonny Page stressed how important it is for the Eagles to get back to an effective run game against the Saints.

“This is a sort of a get it right game, the offensive line needs to be able to run without a mobile quarterback. You can’t just rely on [Jalen] Hurts running, when he does come back who knows if the Eagles will want him taking 15-10 hits with a bad shoulder any way.”

The last time the Eagles had four turnovers was in their loss to the Commanders Week 10.

”The Eagles do need to prove that they can get back to running the ball or there will be a little bit of concern which is not what you want. One thing this team has been really good at this year is being able to beat teams in different ways and they did struggle big time with being able to run the ball against the Cowboys and so if I were them this is what I’d be doing at the start of the [Saints] game.”

Miles Sanders said it best, the Birds can’t win no game (sic) turning the ball over four times. Simple as that. If the Eagles wouldn’t have turned the ball over as much they easily would’ve been able to score on each of those drives and won the game.

So, let’s just chalk last week’s disappointing run game performance up to bad luck and hope that they can bounce back and take care of the ball better against the Saints Week 17.

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