RYAN MATHEWS' tenure with the Eagles began on an odd, wrong-footed note. Now it just might have ended the same way.
Mathews signed with the Birds two springs ago, just as they were reeling in DeMarco Murray, the NFL's reigning leading rusher. The team hadn't expected to sign Murray when it made an offer to Mathews, which was kind of awkward, but Mathews signed here anyway, three years and $11 million, his arrival an odd footnote to the much splashier Murray venture.
Mathews outlasted Murray, and he became the Eagles' leading rusher this season, even if his play and the coaches' use of him remained oddly inconsistent.