Just Win Baby!

I sit here at the epicenter of chaos personified! Out on the streets, Manhattan quivers under the mighty blow of the MTA strike.

E-A-G-L-E-S! Eagles! Yes, Philadelphia managed to look semi-decent, at least on defense and special teams, for the second week in a row. It was a victory with a little merit. Anytime you are playing out the string, and find it in your football team to win a game, on the road, where you down semi-late by more than a single score, there is a little pride and some young players contributing.

Just how do you win a road game where you have 97 yards passing, 115 yards in penalties (many really stupid) and lose the turnover battle by three? Well, let’s not kid ourselves. It helps that Rams are a joke, committed 115 yards in stupid penalties too and are playing out the string literally.

You’ll win a lot of road games when the defense only allows one touchdown- and that score came when McMahon turned it over on his own five yard line. I realize in order to find out about McMahon you sort of have to let him throw 3rd-and-long- rather than play it safe, punt the ball and play defense. But man, is he killing Philadelphia or what?

One thing the Eagles’ still can do is sort of either hang around or come back in games they deserve actually playing the game to lose soundly: @ Atlanta, @ Washington, @ Kansas City, both Giants games, San Diego. Philadelphia still is real good forcing teams to play mistake-free football in a one-score game late- particularly on the road. On defense especially, they normally don’t rattle or beat themselves. The Rams are incapable of "smart" or "Mistake-free" of course. To that end, midway through the third quarter to the final gun, the Eagles didn’t play well exactly- but made few gross mistakes- while the Rams had a killer interception, some awful penalties and allowed a big return.

For instance, the turning point in this contest was early in the third quarter. Down by nine, Philadelphia forces a stop and gets the ball in excellent field position for the offense- which promptly punts in right back. Rather than hang their heads, they immediately get another quick stop. The Eagles’ offense this time manages to stagger ahead for a few plays and make a kick. Now, it is a one score game heading into the fourth quarter- and more importantly, this is a game now less of “who is better?” (probably the Rams in their own building) but rather “who is less stupid?” (definitely Philadelphia).

The Rams had some success running the ball early. But as I point out until I am blue in the face, unless you can throw off the run, it doesn’t score touchdowns. The Eagles pass-rush oddly asserted itself for once- with the insertion, of all people, ND Kalu in the game- who for one game at least looked like he was playing for a contract. Fitzpatrick is pretty bad- and not a guy who is going to hurt the Eagles' secondary while under pressure. So the Rams couldn’t turn their early success running the ball into big plays in the passing game- and thus could not score the three touchdowns that would have put this out of reach of Philadelphia’s anemic offense.

McMahon is/was terrible- but we’ve come to expect that. However his one clutch throw was at the right time- after a Rams' turnover in their own end- resulting in a short touchdown to match the Rams. And of course Ryan Moats continued to solidify his campaign to get ten touches a game at least next year- with yet another electric run for a score.

One comfort of the past five or so week is that the Eagles are back to playing some real quality specials- particularly covering kicks. Akers being back restores a huge weapon. They still need to get a punter and some return options.

Still, Philadelphia has played pretty okay four out of five outings now- winning two and forcing OT against a solid Giants team. The Seahawks got them good- but overall- not bad so far for the JVs. They have a decent chance to win both remaining games- in fact, I bet they do get one. Seven wins- including potentially three by a real collection of young, raw players on offense saddled with a brutal quarterback situation- really would be an honest achievement by the remaining players.