If you kept watching Westbrook after he crossed the goal line and after he was congratulated by his teammates and after he returned to the Eagles sideline, you saw him limp a little and grimace a little, then sit down on the bench, partly to catch his breath, mostly to rest a throbbing knee and sore ankle that have been bothering him much of the season.
Westbrook isn't 100 percent, but then no player still standing is at this point of the season. God knows what an MRI of Jon Runyan's knee would tell us right now. Nothing good, that's for sure. We'd wonder how he is able to walk to the bathroom this week, let alone keep Justin Tuck off of McNabb.
Players aren't going to tell you how badly they're injured right now, just like Chase Utley wouldn't acknowledge his seasonlong hip injury until the Phillies' championship season was over and the surgery date had been set.
Asked about his injuries on his weekly radio show on 950-ESPN Monday night by co-host Brian Seltzer, Westbrook said, "I'm dealing with an injury. I'm dealing with multiple injuries. I've been dealing with that the last 2 months. Those things aren't going to go away in a couple of weeks. They aren't going to go away until the season is over.
"But I'm going to go out there no matter if I'm 50 percent, 75 percent or 100 percent. I'm giving all I have for this team. I'm all out all day. Whatever I have that day, that's what I'm going to give."
It has been the curse of the Eagles under Andy Reid that they seldom have been running on all cylinders when it counts the most. They very well might have upset the Rams' Greatest Show On Turf for the 2001 NFC Championship if not for Troy Vincent's groin injury.
Very well might have beaten the Panthers in the 2003 conference championship game if Westbrook hadn't torn his triceps muscle in the final regular-season game against Washington. Two years ago, a faulty run defense exploded on them in the divisional playoffs against the Saints, or that might have been them in the Super Bowl rather than Rex freaking Grossman and the Bears.
This year, their defense is one of the two or three best in football. It has has given up just 11.7 points per game in the last eight games. Their quarterback, McNabb, has been on fire since his late-November benching, completing 64.9 percent of his passes and throwing 10 touchdowns and just two interceptions in the last six games.
But the Eagles need more than a white-hot defense and a rolling-sevens McNabb to survive the next 2 weeks and advance to the Super Bowl. They need a productive Westbrook.
If this year's Westbrook were in the same physical shape as last year's Westbrook, when he led the league in combined rushing and receiving yards, I'd tell you to gas up the car and punch "Tampa, Fla." into your GPS. But he's not. And Sunday's 71-yard touchdown aside, it has shown.
Westbrook was bothered by a seasonlong sore knee last year, too, but it never seemed to affect the way he cut or the way he exploded through a hole. This year has been different. Slowed by the high ankle sprain in addition to a knee that gets a little bit worse every time he carries the ball, Westbrook hasn't been the same lethal runner he was in '07.
He has averaged almost 45 fewer rushing and receiving yards per game this season (95.6) than last season (140.3). His yards-per-touch average dropped from 5.7 to 4.6. Both his rushing average (4.0) and receiving average (7.4) are career lows.
He's had just 20 runs of 10 yards or more this season compared to 37 last year. Only two 20-plus yard receptions compared to eight a year ago. His number of 100-yard rushing/receiving performances plummeted from 12 in '07 to five this year.
Interestingly, the one notable number that has gone up is touchdowns. Westbrook had a career-high 14 TDs in the
regular season (nine rushing, five receiving). Last year, he had 12 (seven rushing, five receiving).
After rushing for 167 yards in the Eagles' Week 8 win over the Falcons, Westbrook went through a four-game dryspell in which he averaged just 3.0 yards per carry and 3.5 yards per touch. Then, on just 4 days' rest after the Eagles' embarrassing 36-7 loss to the Ravens, he rushed for 110 yards and scored four touchdowns in a turnaround win over the Cardinals and racked up 203 rushing and receiving yards and two touchdowns in a 20-14 Week 14 win over Sunday's playoff opponent, the Giants.
Since then, though, with the exception of that one play Sunday, he's been quiet. He's averaged just 3.0 yards per carry in the last four games, including 38 yards on 20 carries against the Vikings.
Reid has said he wants to give more touches to Westbrook's productive backup, Buckhalter, who is averaging a robust 4.9 yards per carry and 12.5 yards per catch. But seeing is believing. Buckhalter picked up 27 yards on his first carry Sunday late in the first quarter. Touched it just one more time the rest of the game. Yes, he had to move to fullback after Dan Klecko got hurt. But unless they've changed the rules, fullbacks are allowed to run and catch the ball.
Reid and the Eagles' training staff have played it by ear with Westbrook's injuries all season. They've rested him often during the week, particularly when they practice inside on artificial turf. The fact that the Eagles played on fake grass Sunday in Minnesota won't help Westbrook's knee recover any quicker this week.
"He had the high ankle," Reid said. "Then you add the knee into it. He has a knee that bothers him. We knew that when he came here as a rookie. That he'd had a couple surgeries on the knee. With age and games played, you've got to manage that the right way. That's what we're doing."
If the Eagles are going to get past the Giants on Sunday and get past the survivor of this weekend's other NFC semifinal, Westbrook must make an impact. Whether his injured knee and ankle will allow that to happen remains to be seen.
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