Wondering What’s Wrong with LeSean McCoy?
LeSean McCoy is one of the league’s best running backs. He led the NFL in rushing last year with 1,607 yards, and he also tallied 9 touchdowns and over 50 receptions. If you’re in a season-long fantasy league, there’s a good chance he was drafted first overall.
The last two weeks McCoy hasn’t looked like his usual dominant self. In fact, he hasn’t even looked average. In Week 3 against Washington he ran for just 22 yards on 19 attempts for an average of 1.2 yards per carry, and he hardly improved in Week 4 at San Francisco where he ran for 17 yards on 10 carries, 1.7 yards per carry. He also did not score any touchdowns in this 2-game span.
McCoy is, of course, very talented himself, but he can thank the Eagles’ offensive line for last year’s rushing title. This o-line is among the best in the NFL, with elite players in left tackle Jason Peters and guard Evan Mathis and an above-average center in Jason Kelce. Last year rookie right tackle Johnson looked like a big draft hit, outplaying linemen drafted ahead of him such as Eric Fisher and Luke Joeckel.
In 2014, this great line has suffered from injuries and suspensions. Lane Johnson was suspended the first 4 games of 2014 for performance enhancing drug use, and early on in the season both Mathis and Kelce sustained serious injury and won’t be back on the field until Week 10 at the earliest.
So McCoy has had to make do with an o-line of mostly back-ups, which explains why his production has fallen so drastically. In Week 5, McCoy will be happy to see Lane Johnson return from his suspension. He will need all the help he can get to make up for the loss of Mathis and Kelce, two of the league’s best run-blockers.
Leave a Reply