By Patrick Del Gaone, Sports Talk Philly staff writer 
It's now official, the Philadelphia Eagles have a new featured back.
This afternoon, head coach Doug Pederson named 33-year-old veteran Darren Sproles the lead tailback after a noticeable uptick in usage over the past two weeks.
“I would say that Darren is the No. 1 back right now,” Pederson said. “Ryan is still a big part, you saw the big touchdown run he had yesterday. It’s still a little bit of the running back by committee, obviously we haven’t hung our hat on one guy, but we tend to lean more toward Darren Sproles, it’s hard to take him off the field right now.”
Pederson’s in-game decision-making is beginning to come into question after he passed up two field goal attempts in the first half of yesterday’s 28-23 defeat at the hands of the New York Giants. First, the neophyte head coach called a quarterback draw on 4th-and-two instead of allowing reliable kicker Caleb Sturgis to try a 40-yard field goal.
The attempt would’ve made it an eight-point game. Instead, the Giants brought the house, as Wentz was swarmed by a sea of blue well behind the line of scrimmage.
“I still feel strong about those,” Pederson said. “I think the decisions to go for it just shows confidence and belief in the guys. I felt like we were moving the ball, and again when you look at it, we had more opportunities in this game, to me it didn’t come down to those two plays. There were enough things in this game that cost us this football game. I still stick by what I did.”
“Yeah, they zero blitzed us. They came in off the tight end side, and we missed an assignment. Again, an assignment error on the play. In critical situations like that, if one piece of it fails, then the rest of it has to pick up that piece. It just happened on that play again that we just failed on a block. It wasn’t a mental thing, it was just a physical error.”
Later in the half, the Andy Reid disciple bet on his offense again when faced with a 4th-and-one at the Giants’ six yard-line. Brandon Brooks and Jason Kelce double-teamed Kelvin Sheppard on the zone run, but couldn’t generate any push against the gargantuan defender. Sproles tried to wiggle his way through the smallest of creases, but was ultimately halted just shy of the yard to gain.
Today, Pederson was asked if he regrets any of his decisions from yesterday’s third consecutive divisional loss.
“No, not yesterday,” Pederson said. “I felt comfortable in everything we did, the way I called the game. Even down the stretch, we had opportunities in the last four plays of the game, to extend that drive and potentially score. We just missed on the last play of the game. A play that we actually completed in the third quarter to the same receiver. We gotta keep working and keep making those plays.”
“It’s a little of both, No .1, Jordan [Matthews] could probably look a little sooner. No. 2, it’s 4th down, as a quarterback you’ve just gotta give our guy an opportunity to make the play. I know in Carson [Wentz’s] case, after the game he was very down about that whole last series, some of the decisions and throws that he made. You know, he makes that play in practice 99 out of 100 times, and those two guys are on the same page with that particular route. We’ve seen it, the Cleveland game, the touchdown, same route and he makes that play.”
You can watch the full press conference from Pederson below.
