EAGLES NEWS

The Birds traveled out to San Diego this afternoon for a matchup with the Chargers, as they looked to bounce back from a loss to the Cowboys. Unfortunately, the problems that have been plaguing them got them again today. On their 1st 3 trips into the red zone the Birds were forced to settle for field goals. The defense, minus another linebacker and most of the starting secondary, was shreaded by San Diego to the tune of 331 yards and 31 points. Finally the Eagles committed 9 penalties on the day, with many of them occurring at the most innoportune times. If they could have gotten a TD on any of those 3 drives, and Sheldown Brown hadn't gone down with an injury early in the game, the Birds might have won this one. Instead they settled for field goals and found themselves down 21-9 at the half. Donovan Mcnabb did manage a pair of TD drives in the 2nd half with TD passes to Brent Celek and Jeremy Maclin to cut the lead to 28-23 with about 7 minutes to play. Once again thoug, like last week against the Dallas, the Eagles' defense couldn't get the stop they needed to put Mcnabb back on the field with a chance to win it and eventually San Diego managed a field goal to push the lead to 31-23 with about 30 seconds to play. Mcnabb then managed to drive the Birds down to about the Charger 30 yard line, but neither of the 2 plays he had time for at that point resulted in a game tying score, so the Birds fell 31-23 for their 2nd straight loss to drop to 5-4 overall, still good enough for 2nd in the NFC East, 1 game behind Dallas who also lost today. I think the blame for this one falls squarely on the defense. Donovan Mcnabb threw for 450 yards and 2 TDs and Jason Avant had a career day with 8 catches for 156 yards. So the offense did it's job, other than those few times in the red zone. The defense just couldn't stop San Diego. Here's hoping that banged up defense gets healthy soon.