As Bills-Eagles week is upon us, the dominating story line is McCoy facing his former team. A quick Google search will let you know what Shady thinks of his former team, and especially his former coach. Earlier this season, I wrote an article questioning some of the moves Doug Whaley has made. This is NOT one of those moves. At the time this was viewed as an even trade. The Bills got the better player, but he came with a very high price tag, while the Eagles got a young and athletic LB in Kiko Alonso.
Revisionist history is great. A few recaps on how the trade was viewed at the time: Yahoo declared the Eagles big winners , as did others . To be fair, almost every other site called this the rare trade that truly both teams benefitted and got exactly what the needed. Through 12 games, it’s clear that this was in fact not an even trade. Buffalo won by a landslide.
PFF actually has McCoy ranked as the 24th RB in the NFL. This however is a case where stats lie. He is downgraded due to his blocking skills, let’s be honest, a guy his size is never going to be a great blocker. If you take blocking out of the equation he is actually 17th. Keep in mind this same ranking has Adrian Peterson 23rd. Looking deeper into this, McCoy has played over 500 snaps to date. There are only 6 other players who have played that many. Additionally if you only rank those RBs with over 400 snaps played, McCoy ranks 10th overall, and again, when adjusted for blocking is would actually be 7th among all RBs who have played at least 400 snaps. This feels much more correct. Before we got deeper, let’s look at Alonso’s rankings.
Kiko is ranked as the 36th ILB, or 67th LB among those who have played 25% of their teams snaps this season. One of Alonso’s reported strengths is that he is a three down LB who can play the run or pass. When you consider he is 52nd in downs played, playing less than 300 snaps this season, it becomes even more alarming. He has missed 5 games already this season, after missing all of last season with a torn ACL, as well as missing a year in college with a torn ACL. The most tackles he has in game this season is 6. He only had 6 or less 4 times in 16 games for the Bills in 2013. It’s possible this is scheme related, but it’s also possible the 2013 Alonso doesn’t exist anymore.
This article isn’t meant to bury the legend of Kiko, but I just wanted to provide some context for where they rank currently. When you consider what type of offense Roman wants to run, this swings it to the Bills even more. McCoy currently has 792 yards. McCoy is on pace for over 1100 rushing yards himself this year, and the Bills project to have 2250! Even this doesn’t tell the full story. Over the last few games, McCoy has become much more involved in the passing game as well. He has gone over 100 combines rushing and receiving yards combined for 6 consecutive games! This is Thurman Thomas type stuff here. Maybe we should look over some Eagles stats as well. Chip Kelly’s offense is truly built to run the ball. McCoy averaged 1450 yards rushing the last 2 seasons in Philly. The eagles averaged 2250 rushing yards over the last 2 seasons. This season, they are on pace for just over 1800. Their leading rusher is on pace for under 800 yards!
There are two final things that must be discussed when evaluating the value of Shady to the Bills. The first is big play ability. This is something the Bills have not had the last 2 years. Buffalo had 7 and 11 runs over 20 yards the last 2 seasons. They already have 15 this season, with McCoy having 5. Make no mistake, having McCoy back there also helps Tyrod runs as he has 5 20+ runs himself. When you are playing an inexperienced QB, big plays matter, as you can’t count on him to engineer 10+ play drives repeatedly. The other area McCoy has helped the Bills is swagger. For the last 15 years, the Bills have not been good and you could see them fall into that “here we go again” thought process when things go poorly for them. McCoy feels as though every time he touches the ball, he’s going to score. You can see that attitude rub off on our offense. The OL knows if they can block their man for just half a second, McCoy can make something happen. Shady is everything we were hoping CJ Spiller would be. He is the most complete back the Bills have had since Thurman. To top it off, he’s still only 27, suggesting he has another 3 years reasonably at this output.
At the end of the day, if you get a chance to get a dynamic RB who is Top 10 (and maybe top 5) in the NFL at his position, for a guy coming off his second torn ACL, you make that deal 100 out of 100 times. Ask yourself this, if you called Philly today and offered McCoy back to them, how quickly would they say yes? I expect a monster game from Shady this weekend. I expect over 20 touches and over 120 yards with a score. Maybe after the game he will even invite Chip to his private party……
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