PHILADELPHIA — There's a case to be made that Miles Sanders has been the Eagles' best draft pick since they won Super Bowl LII. How's that for damning with faint praise?
After all, there have been just three drafts in that time, and Howie Roseman — with the occasional word of input from Jeffrey Lurie — is the one doing the picking, and one could argue that Dallas Goedert, whom the Eagles drafted the year before they picked Sanders, is or will turn out to be the better player. If you want to argue that, go for it. But Sanders is more explosive, a greater threat to score whenever the ball is in his hands, the focal point of an entire dimension of the Eagles offense: their running game. When they bother to have a running game.
Of all the mystifying and disheartening aspects of this Eagles season, their misuse of Sanders ranks at or near the top. Wait. Misuse is the wrong word. What's the right one? Unuse? Nonuse? He's averaging a yard more per carry this season than he did last season, when he gained a robust 4.6 yards per attempt. For an offense desperate to create big plays, Sanders has two 74-yard runs, a 28-yard reception, and a 22-yard reception. Yet he often vanishes from the offense like a phantom, or never appears at all.
He hasn't carried the ball more than 20 times in any of his eight games — and that 20-carry game was his first game, a blowout loss to the Rams in Week 2 — and had just six rushing attempts in the Eagles' loss to the Seahawks on Monday. He had 50 catches last season. He would be on a 16-game pace for 38 this season.
