Family safe, Blount focused on Redskins
While his relatives hunker down in Arizona to avoid the Category 5 storm about to hit South Florida, Eagles running back LeGarrette Blount is getting ready for Sunday’s trip to Washington.
PHILADELPHIA » LeGarrette Blount has had his eye on the weather reports lately, mainly because his family might have been in the path of oncoming Hurricane Irma.
The Category 5 “monster” storm is expected to hit South Florida with a vengeance, but Blount, a native of Madison, Fla., about an hour’s drive east along Interstate 10 from Tallahassee, thought the northern panhandle was a little too close for comfort, too. So Blount did something about it. “I’m not 100 percent sure how much of it they were going to get, but my family is leaving tonight to go to Arizona,” Blount said. “I have a house out in Arizona so they’re going to stay there.”
While his relatives hunker down in his desert digs far away from the torrential rain, Blount will be getting ready for Sunday’s visit to Washington and the season opener against the Redskins.
“I’m excited about the opportunity,” the Birds’ new running back said. “We’ve been working hard, we’ve been grinding, chipping away at the bit for a while now. We’ve learned every day; we feel like we’re going to be a really good team. We feel like things are coming together, so we’re excited about it.”
Just because he had barely any touches in the preseason, Blount predicted he wouldn’t be any rustier than the next guy.
“I feel like most teams don’t use their starters as much during the pre-season now,” he said. “It’s not really an unwritten rule, but most teams don’t really leave their guys out there. That’s extra games ... a lot of extra stuff and unfortunately some things happen that can hurt your team. So you try to make it as low-risk as possible.
“But we’re going to be good. It’s going to be the first week of the season, every offense in this league isn’t going to come out and score 40 or 50 points. It’s a grind it out league. Everybody gets paid to play football in this league. So you know, you’re not going to be able to go out there and just do whatever you want to do. You just have to grind and grind and grind until it opens up for you.”
*** While Eagles owner Jeff Lurie spoke about criticism of his team and its coaching and management leaders in a press conference late Thursday afternoon, he didn’t go so far as to make a prediction on the outcome of the pending season.
Asked for a numerical future equation, Lurie danced a little and said, “Who knows how the season is going to go in terms of injuries, or whether the chemistry is going to come together? ... Every season is a marathon.
“But I love the blueprint that we have,” Lurie added. “I think we’re headed in a terrific direction.”
Asked if that direction should see the Eagles reaching the postseason, he again spun his words and said, “I think so much happens in a given season that you can never say that. In (my) 23 years, even coming off all those multiple NFC championship games and NFC East titles and all that, I’ve never said, ‘We’re obviously a playoff team.’
“It just doesn’t work that way in the NFL.”
For evidence, Lurie pointed to surprising runs made last season by the Dallas Cowboys and Atlanta Falcons, who didn’t run out of brain power or steam until the second half of the Super Bowl.
Even then, who foresaw the Patriots coming back to win that game?
“It’s sort of foolhardy to make any predictions whatsoever,” Lurie said.
*** Ah, but Lurie did more or Lurieless make one prediction that Eagles fans should be very excited about: A return to a full kelly green wardrobe scheme.
“We don’t really think the midnight green helmet with the kelly green uniform is what we want or the fans really want,” the Eagles owner said. “I don’t think it matches very well. So we’re trying to get it where they will let us use a kelly green helmet. We go through so many helmets in a game; the players go through, I don’t know, seven or eight helmets in a season, maybe more? So I say, can’t we just paint it that way and move it around?
“But you can’t (do that) without league approval and they have some issues they’re dealing with, where the players have to approve it, and the players association has to approve it. That’s the holdup. I don’t know that they’ve had those discussions but my hope is that by next offseason I’m going to try to push those discussions forward. And we’re not the only team. There’s other teams that want to see two helmets.”