"The Eagles spent the short work week running from practice to meeting back to practice and, well, back to meeting again in the short span between Sunday's loss to the Bears and Thursday's game against Houston.

All that scurrying around at the NovaCare Complex was enough to make one think that Andy Reid and Marty Mornhinweg would formulate a game plan that favors the run.

Insert obligatory Eagles run-pass ratio joke here.

OK, so Reid and his offensive coordinator are unlikely to serve a steady stream of Power-I against the second-to-worst pass defense in the NFL. The Eagles pass to get ahead and then, only with a comfortable margin, do they attempt to drain the clock and run the football down a defense's esophagus.

It's worked pretty well to this point. The Eagles are 7-4 and have the No. 2-ranked offense in the NFL.

But if they fall behind early, as they did against Chicago, then even the best-laid run schemes will go awry. The Eagles actually intended to establish the run on their first two plays from scrimmage against the Bears.

"Coach was like, 'OK, we're going to smack them in the mouth,' " Eagles guard Todd Herremans said. "But as soon as we came out . . . after that first series and we didn't get the production that I wanted to on those first two plays I was thinking, 'Man, I hope we stick to it because I know that we can get it right.' "

Both runs were behind the left side of the offensive line - Herremans' side - but LeSean McCoy was dropped for a 1-yard loss and Eldra Buckley gained only 3 yards. Eight of the Eagles' next nine plays were pass plays as they fell behind, 7-3. And when Chicago surged ahead, 14-3, on the next series, Mornhinweg's play-calling was understandably pass-heavy.

By game's end, quarterback Michael Vick had dropped back to pass 51 times and handed off only 15 times. The fact that the Bears' safeties were playing as far back as Lake Michigan to limit long passes, however, suggested that maybe more plays on the ground would have pulled the secondary in.

"You see them back there and you know that you should be doing it to make up some ground," Herremans said.

Mornhinweg hears the constant grumbling from fans and critics that the Eagles need to run more. The numbers seem to suggest that the run-pass disparity is less than in years past, but actually - if you classify Vick's scrambles and sacks as pass plays - the ratio is 63-37.

"I don't really care - whatever it takes to win the game," Mornhinweg said. "I don't care if we throw 30 times in a row or rush it 15 in a row. I really don't.""