EAGLES NEWS

The Birds weren't great tonight but against the sloppy and winless 49ers they were good enough. Kevin Kolb was solid throwing for 253 yards and a TD. Lesean McCoy courageously played with a cracked rib and racked up 92 rushing yards and a TD and 5 catches for 46 yards. Finally, Jeremy Maclin was the Eagles leading receiver with 6 catches for 96 yards. Defensively, the Eagles weren't great, allowing both Vernon Davis and Micheal Crabtree to go over 100 receiving yards, but they were good enough when they had to be. They did a pretty good job clamping down on the vaunted 49er run game, holding Frank Gore to only 52 yards. Alex Smith did shred them a bit with 300 yards and 2 TDs but the Eagles also forced him to turn the ball over 3 times and that proved to be the difference.

Both teams scored on their opening drives with Kolb firing an 8 yard TD pass to Brent Celek to answer the 49ers opening score. Later about 5 minutes into the 2nd quarter, Frank Gore fumbled the ball away in his own territory, as Stewart Bradley poked it loose. The Eagles turned that into an Aker's field goal for a 10-7 lead. Late in the 2nd quarter Desean Jackson broke a 20 yard punt return, and a couple plays later Lesean McCoy found an opening and rumbled 29 yards for a TD. San Francisco threw one opportunity for points on Smith's first interception, added a field goal and missed another following a Kolb fumble to give the Eagles a 17-10 lead at the half. It was still 17-10 early in the 4th quarter when Smith was sacked and fumbled right to Quintin Mikell who returned it untouched 52 yards for a TD and a 24-10 lead. Smith rebounded to fire a couple late TD passes but an Aker's field goal with 4 and a half minutes left kept the Eagles ahead 27-24.

Still they weren't quite able to run out the clock before San Francisco got the ball back 1 last time with about a minute to play and only 1 timeout. Smith was able to make one 20 + yard connection with Vernon Davis to get the 49ers in Eagles territory but they get no further. On 3rd and 10 from the Eagles 44 with under 50 seconds to play, a blitzing Trevor Laws forced Smith to throw one up for grabs and right into the hands of Trevard Lindley for his first career interception. With that 49er hopes of victory were dashed and the Eagles and Kolb were able to kneel down and the savor the important win which moved them to 3-2 overall and a still 3 way tie for 1st in the NFC East with the Redskins and Giants. Incredibly at this point the Eagles are 3-0 on the road and 0-2 at the Linc, what gives?