The Eagles came into this early evening's game simply needing to win to clinch at least a playoff spot. With their opponents being the San Francisco Forty Niners, who desperately needed to win just avoid being eliminated from playoff contention, that didn't figure to be any easy task. Fortunately, unlike last week against the Giants, the Eagle's defense came to play. They forced the Niners to committ 4 turnovers, intercepting Alex Smith 3 times, and forcing a key fumble deep in Eagle's territory. They also sacked Alex Smith 3 times ,and held San Fran to just 261 yards of offense and zero 3rd down conversions. Where the pass rush had not been able to put any heat on Eli last week it did time and time again in the face of Alex Smith on this day. He just really never got comfortable in the pocket and the Niners were lucky he didn't throw more than those 3 picks. Offensively, the Birds simply continued their fine play with Donovan completing 21 of 36 passes for 306 yards and a TD. Desean Jackson, with 6 catches for 140 yards and a TD, and Brent Celek, with 4 for 73 yards, hauled in most of those completions. Meanwhile, Leonard Weaver and Lesan Mccoy formed a successful running tandem once again, as they combined for 100 ruhsing yards and a TD. The Birds started strong taking their opening drive 50 yards for a TD, on a pass from Mcnabb to Jackson. After kicking a field goal to cut it 7-3, Smith and Niners started turning it over and the Birds took advantage of those turnovers to put a further 13 answered points before the half, with Mcnabb scrambling 8 yards for a TD, and David Akers booting a pair field goals, for a 20-3 halftime lead. San Fran really turned things around in the 3rd quarter shutting down the Eagles and scoring 10 unanswered points to pull within one score of the Birds at 20-13. Finally in ther 4th quarter the Eagles put together an 89 yard drive, capped off by a 2yd Mccoy TD run to push ahead for good 27-13. In fact thanks to the defense that's how it ended. So at 10-4 overall the Eagles have clinched an NFC playoff spot. They'll still probably have to win out to claim the division and at least 3rd in the NFC. Also the Minnesota Vikings lost tonight, so the Eagles are now just one game behind them in the NFC standings, which means they just need to win out and hope the Vikes one of their 2 remaining games, to steal a first round bye.
1 comment:
Its good to know that the Eagles, no matter how bad they may play in the next couple of weeks, are still in the playoffs. However I think they can win out the rest of the season and if we're lucky the Vikings will blow it and Hey, look at that, we have a first round bye.
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