When Duce Staley came to rest after his 24th and final carry of the afternoon last week, a little bit of history touched the field as the crowd screamed "Duuuuuuuce" and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers tried feverishly to locate their team bus.

If part of enjoying a sporting event is the chance to see something you'll never see again, then Staley, a running back trapped in a passing offense, may have provided the moments to remember in this one.

Twenty-four carries, 152 yards.

Those are Wilbert Montgomery numbers. Steve Van Buren numbers. They are numbers sent by Ouija board from the days when defenses ran the NFL and offenses ran the ball.

Sure, there are still running backs around and teams with the inclination to employ them, but the Eagles are not one of them. For them, Staley is mostly an overqualified diversion, and he must look at the game plan most weeks and feel like a sailor landlocked in Kansas.

Twenty-four carries last game. But how many will he get against the Giants tonight?

"I have no idea. I guess we'll find out," Staley said as the team got ready for prime time. "I just try to play the game."

Staley is healthy now, and he's capable of big numbers - although the 57 yards he picked up against the dispirited Bucs on his last carry padded things a bit. The likelihood, however, is that he will never have that spectacular a game again, at least for the Eagles.

"All I try to do is take care of Duce. I don't have any idea what's in their minds," he said of the coaching staff. "I don't call the plays. Hopefully, we will [continue to run]. But we're a passing offense. That's something I know."

Against the Bucs, the Eagles ran the ball more than they passed it for the first time this season. In a reversal of personality akin to Ozzy Osbourne delivering lines from Shakespeare, the Eagles ran it 58 percent of the time. No big deal, just the highest percentage of running plays in the Eagles' last 42 games.

So, hang around, Duce. Forty-two games from now, the running game will get another spotlight chance.

What happened all those many games ago? The Eagles opened the 2000 season by pummeling the Dallas Cowboys as Staley carried 26 times for 201 yards. That's the only game in his career in which he carried for more than the 152 he gained against the Bucs.

It belabors the obvious to point out that a team with a big lead will run the ball more often - so save your e-mails - but that hardly explains what happened last week. The Eagles never had a comfortable advantage in the Tampa Bay game and did not take the 20-10 lead that would become the final score until there were just over eight minutes left in the game.

Still, Andy Reid stayed with the run, appeared to believe in the run, and was rewarded with a win. A trend worth pursuing perhaps?

"You always want to run the ball because it opens up your whole playbook," center Hank Fraley said. "You can call anything because they're not teeing off on your quarterback. They're looking to Duce to see if he's running the ball, and in that split-second while they're looking our wide receivers are getting downfield."

That only works, however, if the defense believes, really believes, that the run package is something more than the false dedication of a dieter who gets an iced tea to go with that cheesesteak.

Mark me down as a non-believer.

Duce Staley will not have a game like that again.

Not that the Eagles' offense is not explosive and, as a rule, not that having Donovan McNabb as the primary running threat is not effective. But leaning that way exclusively is a mistake, a high-wire act that leaves no safety net for the day when the receivers do not get open or the quarterback is smacked silly. Have one of those days in the playoffs and the whole season is burnt toast.

In other words, the pass can bail out a faltering running game a lot easier than the run can bail out a faltering passing game.

The Eagles are not alone in their current imbalance, of course. Only six teams in the league have run the ball more than they have passed this season. Still, the Eagles are jutting out to sea even more than most of their West Coast neighbors. They can see a lot farther than just Catalina from where they are.

"We have normally been a 60-40 team here," Reid said last week, meaning the Eagles generally pass 60 percent of the time and run 40 percent. "That's not a bad ratio. I think that keeps the defense off just enough."

In other words, the running game is just enough of a presence to play the part of a real presence.

"The only way to set the tempo is through the run game," Staley said. "I felt if we did that [last week], we'd be able to be successful. I saw a couple of times that Andy ran it three and four times back-to-back. That showed he had confidence in the run game."

Even Staley probably knows nothing has changed, however. He struggled for opportunities through the first four games of the season - and was ranked a dismal 32d among the league's rushers - although three of those games were blowout wins.

Look into Staley's future and there will probably be a lot more 11-for-41 than 24-for-152 days. Look at his chances of getting a decent contract extension before his current deal expires in two more years. (Staley will be 30 when the 2005 season begins. Would you sink big money into him? For this offense?)

Look at it all and then look at Staley as he rose wearily from the ground at the end last week, a great day behind him but still nothing but uncertainty ahead.

"You've just got to wait your turn," Staley said, hoping like everyone else that the bosses actually have this thing figured out.