LeSean McCoy had a brilliant year in 2011. Let’s go back and take another look at his numbers, to make sure we remember just how good he was.

273 – 1,309 – 4.8 ypc – 17 TDs

Those are beyond impressive. 17 TDs? That’s the kind of stuff we used to see Emmitt Smith do. Brian Westbrook never had more than 9 rushing TDs in a season. Heck, he only had 41 for his career. Shady almost got halfway there in one year.

You want to really freak out? Duce Staley only had 24 rushing TDs in his entire career. Shady already has 28. Duce never had more than 5 in a season. And you can’t say it was lack of touches. He had 3 years with 250 or more carries. You have to go back to Ricky Watters in 1996 to find an Eagles RB anywhere close. He had 13 TDs that year, but he did get 80 more carries.

Set aside TDs and let’s look at the other numbers in comparison to Westy’s best year.

2011 – Shady – 273 – 1,309 – 4.8 ypc

2007 – Westy – 278 – 1,333 – 4.8 ypc

Pretty crazy how similar the numbers are. Beyond them, Shady was better. He had more 1st downs (84 to 73), more runs of 20+ yards (14 to 11), and more runs of 40+ yards (2 to none). All this and Shady is still just 23 (his birthday is on Thursday, BTW).

Shady is still a young player and learning the game. Westy had his best year at age 28, as a mature veteran. He also had the benefit of playing behind a very good run blocking OL. Tra was the weak spot at LT. Then you had Todd-Jamaal-Shawn-Runyan. And that was when Shawn Andrews was dominant.

So how can Shady improve?

The biggest issue for me is knowing when to cut back and when to hit the hole. Think back to the early Giants loss. Andy Reid went for it on 4th/1 when we had the lead in the early 4th Qtr. The ball was at midfield. Andy wanted to keep the ball and go score again, hopefully to put the game away. Understandable. Still the wrong decision. The Giants offense was struggling, aside from big plays. The smart move was to punt, pin them deep, and play defense.

Andy fed the ball to McCoy instead and he was tackled for a loss. The Giants came to life, scored on a short field, and won going away. Ugh.

While I didn’t like Andy’s call, Shady was equally at fault. He made the mistake of thinking generally and not situationally. On 4th/1 in the 4th Qtr of a tight game, the focus must be on the one yard. A long TD run is irrelevant. You must get the yard.

Shady got the handoff and started upfield, then tried to use a cutback move. The Giants had been burned by this all game long and had DBs coming off the edge to box him in. Shady was stuffed for a loss. He might not have gotten the yard even if he flew upfield directly, but he at least had a chance. There was no chance to go outside.

Shady’s best asset as a runner is his lateral agility. He makes dynamic moves and cuts, going sideways at full speed. He must be allowed to be a cutback runner. No one would want to change that part of his game. The point is that he must know that in certain situations there should be no option…just go straight ahead. Bill Parcells calls this “trusting the play”.

While this sounds simple enough, Shady’s instincts are to avoid defenders and run to daylight. That works brilliantly most of the time. If Shady wants to take the next step, he must learn to trust the play in certain situations and just focus on getting the yard.

Barry Sanders never could do this. That’s why the Lions would use someone else near the goal line and in some short yardage situations. As great as he was, Barry’s career high in rushing TDs was 16. A lot of his scoring runs came from further out.

Shady is like Sanders in many ways. Let’s hope this is one area where they turn out differently. The fact that Shady did score 17 TDs last year, more than a couple from in close, offers us hope that he can be a better situational runner.

Outside of running the ball, Shady has plenty to work on. His pass protection is good, but needs to be more consistent. There are times when he will aggressively take on a rusher and do his job well. There are other plays when Shady is hesitant or looks confused and he’s a speed bump for someone on the way to the QB.

Can’t have that. He needs to consistently choose the correct target, get into position, and then execute the block well. This protects the QB and will help cut down on turnovers. Being okay isn’t acceptable. Pass protection is too important.

Shady also needs to get better as a receiver. He’s outstanding on screen passes, but needs to get better as a general receiver. It isn’t fair to hold him to Westy’s standard here. Westy was like an extra WR. Still, one of the reasons the Eagles liked Shady so much heading into the draft was for his pass catching skills. We haven’t seen nearly enough of that.

Shady is already a special player. It should be exciting to see just how good he can be if he’s able to make progress and work on these areas. He’s one of the few players where the saying “the sky is the limit” is genuinely true.

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Shocking news…Sheil Kapadia is leaving us. No news of what’s going on. He made Moving The Chains an invaluable blog. It truly was “must read material”.

Follow him on Twitter to stay in touch and keep up with him. He did mention that he’ll be writing about football, but offered no insight as to where. Hopefully we’ll be able to follow him in his new gig.

Good luck Sheil.

UPDATE: Good news. Sheil and Tim McManus are going to run an Eagles blog for Philly Mag. Should become a prime source for information.

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