Miles Sanders can prove he’s worth an extension from the Eagles at Dallas

Numbers sometimes lie.

If you review the box score of the Eagles’ Week 9 win in Houston, the numbers Miles Sanders produced that Thursday night don’t resonate as anything unusual. He carried the ball 17 times for 93 yards. He scored a touchdown against a one-win team that has since proved to be the NFL’s worst. Even graded on the curve of the event — road game, on a short week — Sanders, who’d had only nine carries four days earlier, should have been as ready as anyone.

Still, it might have been the best game of his superb season. Maybe the best game of his fine young career.

Why?

Because he’d never played a more physical game.

Afterward, as his teammates gazed at the televisions bolted above the corner lockers to watch the end of Game 5 of the Phillies-Astros World Series, Sanders could barely stand straight. It was 45 minutes after the final whistle and he still wore his pants and pads, his compression undershirt, and even his eye black.

I knew why. I shook his hand. I said, ”You’ve never run harder.”

He looked me in the eye.

“I know,” he replied. “I just want to stay here. I want to come back.”

Sanders can become a free agent in the offseason. He says there have been no extension negotiations.

“If it comes, it comes,” he muttered. “I’m not one to keep talking about it.”

» READ MORE: Jalen Hurts’ MVP hopes die after Eagles coaches put him at risk too often

This weekend, he can be about it. It’s his best chance to prove to Howie Roseman that the Eagles should bring him back.

Jalen Hurts’ throwing shoulder is injured. He almost certainly won’t play Saturday at Dallas. If Sanders puts together something special — say, a 100-yard, two-TD game against the Cowboys on Christmas Eve in a win that clichés the No. 1 seed and a first-round bye — it will certainly help his negotiations.

Should there even be negotiations? The Eagles historically have shown little appetite to invest in the running back position, and they’re not wrong. One analysis in 2021 by overthecap.com showed about a 20% decrease in rushing production by running backs the year after they sign an extension from their rookie deal.

But few of those runners showed the marked progress Sanders has shown. He’s getting better every year and every game. Sanders is the first Eagles running back with 1,000 yards since LeSean McCoy in 2014. He has averaged 5.68 yards per carry in his last eight games, in which he has scored seven TDs. He has one fumble this season, despite a career-high 215 carries and 234 total touches.

Yes. There should be negotiations. A diminished version of a back-loaded deal like Aaron Jones’ four-year, $48 million extension he signed with the Packers before the 2021 season seems reasonable, since it was really a two-year, $20 million deal with an easy out after 2022. (It has since been renegotiated for salary-cap purposes.)

Sanders is just beginning to realize his potential.

“He’s running the crap out of the ball. I think he’s doing a really nice job of being decisive. I think he’s doing a really nice job of being physical,” coach Nick Sirianni said. “I think he’s doing a really nice job.”

That doesn’t mean he’s irreplaceable.

It doesn’t help Sanders’ case that the draft class of running backs in 2023 is strong. The Eagles haven’t spent a first-round pick on a running back since they took Keith Byars at No. 10 in 1986, or 11 years before Sanders was born, but more options mean the Birds could get a second-round steal, as they did with Sanders in 2019.

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The issue with that is, if the Eagles are built to win now, the last thing they need is a rookie featured back. Further, with so many other frontline players facing contract years — players like Jason Kelce, Fletcher Cox, Javon Hargrave, James Bradberry, Brandon Graham, and even Gardner Minshew — they’ll need their two first-rounders and the four total picks on Days 1 and 2 to replenish. Extending Sanders, who is only 25, would be like buying a Day 2 draft pick.

Sanders’ prospects look dim.

The Eagles barely used Sanders on Sunday. He touched the ball just once in the first 27 minutes. He finished with just 11 carries.

“We have to get him some touches early, and that’s my job to do that, so I take full responsibility for that,” Sirianni said. Those words rang hollow.

It was the eighth time in 14 games that Sanders ran 15 times or fewer. His coaches just don’t seem to value him.

Few coaches do.

According to Spotrac.com, running backs on average make the least money of any regular position except punter, by a mile. The kickers’ average salary in 2022 is $2.7 million. Running backs? $1.8 million. That’s one-third less.

“It’s the only position in football where the supply of running backs who are good enough to win with is greater than the demand,” explained former Eagles president Joe Banner. “It is absolutely not because the position is not important.”

» READ MORE: Eagles’ Miles Sanders eclipsed 1,000 yards in a rout of the Giants. Bigger (contract) numbers could be in his future.

Sanders is making $1.2 million in the last year of his four-year rookie deal, and it has been his best year. And he’s not just running harder; he’s running smarter. His first three seasons, he avoided contact. If a hole wasn’t big enough, he’d reverse field, run backward, and often lose significant yardage. No more.

His first three seasons, when he was tackled behind the line of scrimmage, he lost an average of 2.21 yards per carry. This season, he’s averaging 1.41, a 37% improvement.

Sanders liked the way he ran in Houston, but he loved the way he ran in Game 13 against the Giants: a career-high 144 yards and two touchdowns on 17 carries.

“From a physicality standpoint, yeah, Houston was a big game,” said Sanders, who shocked himself with his performance at MetLife Stadium. “I won’t say I surprised myself, but I enjoyed the way I ran. I attacked. Make sure I’m going downhill. Make people miss. Get as much yardage as I can. It’s all a mentality.”

Why has the mentality taken so long to crystallize? Injury, attitude, and environment. After a strong rookie year, knee and ankle injuries limited his play in 2020 and 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic robbed him of the 2020 and 2021 offseasons. He lost his coaching staff after the 2020 season, including mentor Duce Staley.

Now, he’s straight.

“I took four years for me to get where I should be, in all aspects. Good system. Good coaches, My focus is on a whole different level,” Sanders said. ”People don’t put that in perspective. The way this [team] has been the last three years?”

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He also began to better prepare his body for four months of hell.

“I lifted every day in the offseason — full-body workouts,” Sanders said. “I’m stronger. I’m healthier.”

That’s great news for the Eagles, who, with their MVP quarterback likely sidelined, should lean on Sanders heavily in what should be the last meaningful game of the year.

But will they?