T.O No Show: Birds Beat Dallas With Dominant ‘D’

Week five of the Philadelphia Eagles’ season was circled on the schedule by football fans all over the nation. It was labeled as “the biggest football game of the year”, there was no doubt it had epic possibilities with the return of Terrell Owens in a Cowboys uniform. Not only was it the biggest game of the season for the Eagles, who had lost their six previous division games — but a win against the Dallas Cowboys would set the Eagles record at 4-1 — and escalate them to major contender status in the NFC.

A very clumsy first half by both teams left the score at 21-17 in the Cowboys favor, with both teams leaving a lot of points on the field due to mistakes. Each team attempted to give the game away early with turnovers and penalties. The second half started instantly with the momentum in the Eagles favor. The Eagles offense struggled to get moving while the birds defense was dominant and kept them in the game. The offense capitalized on Dallas’ mistakes by making a couple of big plays, which led the birds to out last Dallas in a dramatic game 38-24.

Thumbs Up

Donovan McNabb
Like usual this season, Donovan McNabb has been a consistent leader and play maker. Putting aside all the distraction from the T.O circus, he played fantastic in a very important game which says a lot about McNabb as a player. Week five was the first game for Donovan, since the Super Bowl that he got to prove to his critics and fans that he is a great quarterback with or without T.O. McNabb went 18-33 for 354 yards, two passing touchdowns and one he rushed for. He gift wrapped two passes to Hank Baskett and Reggie Brown that were perfectly thrown and resulted in giant touchdowns. If anyone questioned McNabb’s big game ability, they need to rethink it quickly because he is on fire.

Eagles Defense
There is no doubt that even with the loss of Jevon Kearse, this Eagles defense is downright beastly, recording seven sacks in the last game alone. Darren Howard looked like Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic four, stretching his arm in the face of Drew Bledsoe wherever Drew went. The rejuvenated Lito Sheppard, who is coming back from missing three games with an ankle injury, had two interceptions, (almost three but he dropped a pass aimed at his hands) one of which iced the game when he returned it 102 yards for a touchdown. Shawn Barber and Sean Considine also had a nice game with nine well played tackles combined. Both players had good games, which is a pleasant surprise considering they were not thought to make much of a difference for the Eagles this season. Overall this Eagles defense put pressure when it was needed and held a extremely potent Cowboys offense to 17 points, none of which came in the air. That means a shut down of the infamous Terrell Owens, who was reported after the game as yelling, “why did you bring me here?” to anyone who would listen.

The Philadelphia Crowd
Both Greg Lewis and Mike Patterson said after the game that it was the loudest they had ever heard Lincoln Financial Field. At the beginning of Andy Reid’s press conference, first and foremost he thanked the fans for being the twelfth man on defense, and saying they had a definite effect on the outcome of the game. With much of the media hype surrounding this game, a lot of it was negative press about how Philadelphia was going to disgrace itself this time. A very loud and classy Lincoln Financial Field showed up, much to the chagrin of all the national media. The Philadelphia fans showed how passionate they are and that they do not have to throw snowballs to be a factor.

Thumbs Down

Critical Defense
Despite the unbelievable defensive effort the Eagles defense put out, there was still room for some concern. The Eagles allowed Dallas to convert six of 18 crucial third down attempts that could have closed out the game much earlier than they did. The Eagles defense need to be able to crush the spirits of the opposing team, or else they are dancing with the devil and begging the opposition to crawl back into game.

L.J. Smith
L.J. Smith had a decent offensive day having two catches, one of which was a 60 yard gain. Yet, what will stand out to Eagles fans the most about Smith’s game — was on a play where McNabb fumbled into the hands of Cowboys player, Demarcus Ware. As Ware was returning his gift for a touchdown, Smith was the only Eagle anywhere around him to bring Ware to the ground. A tackle there would leave the Eagles defense a substantial amount of yardage to defend. When Smith got into the range of Ware he simply gave him a touch hand touch push, attempting to tackle Ware down. Ware was not phased by the push, and continued on for the touchdown. Poor tackling was a problem for the Eagles all game, and this one was the one that stood out the most.

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The 4-1 Eagles’ next match up is against the divinely overachieving New Orleans Saints in New Orleans. This will be a tough test for the birds, who are coming off a slug fest with a division rival. Many will see this game as a trap for the Eagles, who might let down against the out of division Saints. What makes this game interesting is that it is in the once destroyed Superdome in New Orleans and will be featuring a few former Eagles playing for the Saints, Hollis Thomas and Mark Simoneau. If the Eagles win in New Orleans, which is an excellent possibility the way their defense is playing, watch the Eagles band wagon grow, cause they will suddenly be a team to recon with.

Photo by AP Photo/Tom Mihalek