LeGarrette Blount hasn’t done a whole lot to excite Philadelphia Eagles fans during the preseason this year, and there has been a lot of speculation about him potentially not making the 53-man roster. But after Thursday night’s exhibition game, Blount made it clear he pays no mind to the haters.
While he finally broke a nice run of 16 yards, Blount totaled just three more yards on his other three carries against the Miami Dolphins. He has now rushed for just 36 yards on 13 carries in three preseason games, but the veteran insists it is nothing to be concerned about.
“We’re not game-planning. We’re not any of that,” Blount said, via Tom Pelissero of NFL.com. “So, you’ve just got to wipe away the noise, don’t pay attention to what you guys say. It’s not all of you guys, but you don’t pay attention to (critics).
“I just put it like this: go tell them to go out there and run a couple of the runs I run and see how many yards they get.”
Eagles coach Doug Pederson made similar remarks about game-planning, and there is probably a lot of truth behind that. Teams aren’t tailoring anything to their particular opponents in the preseason, which is why Blount says paying attention to the numbers is pointless.
“This is when you get on the same page,” he said. “This is when, as a running back, you can figure out how your linemen work together, how they block things together, how they work as a unit. So, this is when you figure that out, so it is important.
“But the numbers? Na.”
With Blount, I think the numbers only matter to fans because a certain level of skepticism about him already exists. He scored an NFL-leading 18 rushing touchdowns last season, but he did it while playing behind Tom Brady. Blount will have to prove he can succeed outside of New England and put some of the concerns about his conditioning to rest.
