EAGLES NEWS

How Bitter it is. Leave it to that stinkin city up north that never sleeps, to ruin what started out as such a great day. They say Sunday night is football night America, well someone forgot to tell the Eagles that. For a franchise that's suffered a lot of them over the years, this one ranks up there as one of the most embarrassing losses in Eagles history. If not for their final few drives, the Eagles offense would have nothing to show for themselves. As it is they wound up with only 190 yards of total offense, and a measely 3 points, on a 53 yard David Akers field goal. Donovan Mcnabb was sacked a whopping 12 times, and although he hit 15 of 31 passes for 138 yards, the Eagles as a team only gained 76 yards in the air. However, thanks to 114 yards rushing, 103 for Correll Buckhalter, the Eagles did actually pound to 16 1st downs, and won the time of possession battle, with 30 minutes and 26 seconds of possession time. Well, aside from the defense somehow holding New York to 212 yards, and only 16 points, mostly because of Giants mistakes, that's about all of the positives for the Eagles tonight. So what happened, well there were couple things that killed the Eagles. First, injuries hurt the Eagles, as William Thomas, Brian WestBrook, L.J Smith, and Brian Dawkins all sat the night out. Okay, so Dawkins and Smith weren't missed all that much, but other two, well, the Eagles were lost without them. Thomas' replacement, Winston Justice, was overmatched all night long, allowing Osi Umenyiora to sack Mcnabb 6 times. Perhaps, with Thomas in the game, and Westbrook bouncing around all over the field, Mcnabb would have had the time and the target he needed to spread the field against the Giants. 2nd, the Eagles' inability to provide Justice with some help blocking Umenyiora. It was pretty clear even in the 1st half, that Justice, in his first pro start, wouldn't be able to stop Umenyiora on his own, but Andy Reid, was either unwilling, or unable to realize that this was the case. Perhaps, if Justice had a tight-end blocking with them, he could've protected Mcnabb. Finally, Mcnabb's sudden lack of escapability, ruined virtually all of the Eagles' drives. The old elusive Mcnabb, could easily have scrambled away from the Giants pressure and made some things happen, but this Mcnabb jus wasn't fast enough to slip away. Time after time, he stepped up under the pressure, seemingly a tackle from escape, only to slip up at the last moment, for a sack, just before he could fire the ball down field. If only he could've stayed on his feet a little longer, he could've gotten his recievers open down field. This became pretty clear towards the end of the game, as when he finally eluded the rush for the 1st time, he found Reggie Brown wide open in the endzone for a TD. Of course he had stepped over the line of scrimmage just before throwing the ball and the play was called back, kind of microcosm for the entire game, which also featured 15 Eagles penalties for a 132 yards.