Philadelphia Eagles running back Jay Ajayi felt the ground game was unfairly ignored during the team’s 23-21 loss to the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday.
Ajayi felt that the run game was successful when the Eagles used it, but those occasions were rare, particularly early in the game when it was still close.
“Obviously we want to be able to run the ball early and start that rhythm early in the beginning of the game. If I remember correctly we had maybe three carries at the end of the first quarter,” Ajayi said, via Tim McManus of ESPN. “With the offensive line we have on this team, running the ball like that, that doesn’t make sense to me.”
The Eagles ran the ball twice in the first, though a major part of the problem was that they only had possession for 3:47. Ajayi got his first touch early in the second quarter, and he ended up being the team’s leading rusher with just eight carries for 29 yards. In the last two weeks, the team has averaged roughly five yards per carry, but that hasn’t stopped coach Doug Pederson from dialing up more than twice as many pass plays as run plays.
Maybe Ajayi has a point. The Eagles have leaned a lot on Carson Wentz, and it’s less than ideal that a Vikings big guy got 17 fewer yards on one play than Eagles backs got the entire afternoon.
