Eagles rookie running back McCoy finding he has a lot to learn

BETHLEHEM - In the one-on-one blocking drill, Eagles rookie running back LeSean McCoy ducked his head to lean into Kyle Eckel, who was pretending to be a pass rusher. Eckel quickly got an arm over McCoy and tossed him aside.

Running-backs coach Ted Williams responded like a bandleader who has just heard one of his charges hit a note so flat it hurt his ears.

"Ohhhh! Never, never, never, never put your head down," Williams told the second-round pick. "It's always, 'Head up, butt down.' ''

The running part of being a running back, McCoy seems to have a pretty good take on. The pass-catching part, important when you play for the Eagles, he looks even more smooth at that. But the blocking part, well, that's kinda new.

"It was a lot different than I expected," McCoy said after the first day of live hitting at Lehigh. "A lot faster. The hitting, the physical part, that's kind of normal . . . [tacklers] get to you faster than in college."

McCoy said he "got a whack" trying to chip a rushing lineman, something he'd never done at Pitt.

"Blocking comes with patience. I think the more reps I do it, I get better at it," he said.

McCoy said a few times he felt he tried to do too much, carrying the ball, often with the first unit, with Brian Westbrook sidelined following ankle surgery.

"Vision is one of my biggest [strengths], that makes me a good player," he said. "Today, I read some reads pretty good. Some of them, I tried to make a big play, which didn't work. So now I know to keep it basic, man, hit the hole, that's it."

One other adjustment: McCoy slipped after taking a handoff, touched a knee down, and stopped, as you would in college, where a ballcarrier is down if his knee is down. Defensive end Chris Clemons did not stop, this being the NFL. McCoy was blasted.

"That's another rookie error. I guess in the pros, you can get up. I was wondering why everybody was still running around," McCoy joked.

"I thought he did good," coach Andy Reid said of McCoy. "He had one play where he lined up on the ball, and he's supposed to be off of the ball, but other than that, that's a minor thing, if I can [only] pick that one thing out, that's pretty good. He did some good things. We gave him an opportunity. That live period was more of a run period with a play [action] pass thrown in every third or fourth play, so it gave him an opportunity to carry the ball a little bit and I thought he did a good job."

Eckel downplayed their blocking-drill encounter.

"We all went through the drill, and we were all corrected, one way or another," Eckel said, protectively. "He's improving, he's going to improve, and he wants to improve."

Eckel said blocking, for a running back, is "going through your fundamentals and trusting your ability, not thinking too much. A lot of times you get caught up in the moment, your mind's working a mile-a-minute, and you really kind of lose focus on just playing naturally."

For more Eagles coverage and opinion, read the Daily News' Eagles blog, Eagletarian, at www.eagletarian.com.