Slow start has Westbrook 'fine-tuning'

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Scour the NFL leaders in yards from scrimmage this week and you might think there's a misprint.

No Brian Westbrook in the top 100?

You have to go back to the running back's rookie season of 2002 to find him absent from that list. Since 2003, he has always been among the top 48, and only the San Diego Chargers' LaDainian Tomlinson has more yards from scrimmage since 2004.

After four Eagles games this season, Westbrook has 173 total yards. That number is astonishing when you consider that the running back has had eight individual games in his career with more yards.

Yes, he missed Week 3 with a sprained ankle, but he had missed games this early in the season before and still remained among the leaders in yards.

Yardage hasn't been the only thing on the decline for Westbrook, either. He had just eight touches - six carries for 18 yards and two receptions for 17 yards - during the Eagles' win against Tampa Bay on Sunday, and he has just 40 touches in three games. That's an average of 13 touches. Westbrook has averaged 21 per game since 2004.

All of this makes you wonder if this is the beginning of the end for one of the best running backs to wear an Eagles uniform or if he's just off to a slow start after spending the preseason rehabilitating his surgically repaired right ankle.

Eagles coach Andy Reid said before practice yesterday that his perception of Westbrook hadn't changed.

"He's going to touch the football," Reid said as the Eagles prepared for Sunday's game against the Raiders in Oakland, Calif. "He's a good football player, and he's somebody we try to get the football to. It's just a matter of him having that [ankle] where he feels comfortable with it. Do I think he could still rip off a long run? Yeah, I think he could do that."

Reid's plan is to let rookie running back LeSean McCoy continue to share the workload with Westbrook, he said.

"As long as [Westbrook] is continuing to make progress, I feel comfortable doing that," Reid said.

McCoy "is playing well, and until Brian gets back to where he is comfortable with the foot, then that's what we'll do."

McCoy got the same number of touches as Westbrook did against the Buccaneers.

Westbrook did not complain about his situation when he stepped to the podium at the NovaCare Complex yesterday, but he made it clear that he'd like to touch the football more than the eight times he had it Sunday.

"I haven't talked to Coach too much about it," Westbrook said. "Hopefully, it'll go up. Nobody has really said, 'We need to get you the ball a little bit more.' "

Missing the entire preseason, then sitting out against Kansas City because of the ankle injury, has certainly hindered the running back's progress.

"Right now, I feel like I'm fine-tuning my game," he said. "I'm fine-tuning the things that I haven't been able to work on too much because of the injury. I'm just trying to get to the point where everything comes 100 percent natural."

It's entirely unnatural, however, for Westbrook not to get the football. He said his decline in touches and production could also be a by-product of the Eagles' increase in playmakers.

"I would love to touch the ball more, but I know we have athletes on this team," Westbrook said. "I think over the years here, we've fought and fought and tried to get more playmakers on this team, and now we have them. One of the drawbacks of having more playmakers is you have to spread the ball out a little bit more."

There will be a time, Westbrook said, when the Eagles decide that he is the playmaker they need to win a game, the way he has so often.

"I know that at some point we're going to have to run the ball," he said. "At some point, they are going to have to put the ball in my hands."