The Eagles came into this afternoon's matchup with the Falcons wondering how good they really were. Atlanta came in having been anointed the best team in the NFC and were simply looking to cement that claim. After 60 minutes of football 2 things were clear. The Falcons were most definitely not the best in the NFC and the Eagles were most definitely back in the conversation for tops in the NFC. The Birds just thoroughly outclassed the Falcons on both sides of the ball from beginning to end. Offensively, Kevin Kolb was near flawlesss throwing for 326 yards and 3 TDs. With Desean Jackson getting knocked out early in the game with a concussion, Jeremy Maclin wound up Kolbs top target with 7 catches for 159 yards and a TD.
Before he left with a concussion Jackson had a pretty explosive day as well with a 34 yard TD catch and 2 carries for 44 yards and a TD. On the whole the Birds piled up 474 yards of offense, 154 rushing and 320 passing, to stun the vaunted Falcon's defense. Defensively the Birds played maybe only their 2nd complete game of the season. They held the rush happy Falcons to just 65 yards on the ground. They also terrorized Matt Ryan most of the afternoon, sacking him 3 times and intercepting him once as he threw for just 250 yards. Like their defense, the Atlanta offense was just out of sync all day long. The Eagles jumped on them early and they never recovered. At the same time they also seemed to have a poor game plan and no real plan B and that cost them dearly as well. It was type of performance of Atlanta that makes you wonder what people ever saw in them in the first place.
It was all Eagles in the first quarter, with Desean Jackson rushing 31 yards for a TD on the Birds opening drive and Kevin Kolb tossing a 34 yard TD pass to him for a quick 14-0 lead. Later a little over halfway through the 2nd quarter Kolb found Maclin for an 8 yard TD pass and a 21-0 lead. Asante Samuel then intercepted Ryan late in the 2nd half and the route was on, or at least it would have been if Kolb had not given the ball right back. Following Kolb's interception, Ryan and the Falcons finally punched it in to cut it to 21-7 at the half. A little over halfway through the 3rd quarter, with Atlanta having cut the lead to 21-10, Kevin Kolb fired his 3rd TD pass of the day, an 83 yarder to Maclin to make it 28-10. Finally in the 4th quarter Tony Gonzalez hauled in a TD pass from Ryan to cut it to 28-17 before David Akers could add a late field to put away an impressive 31-17 win. Ultimately it wasn't as close as that score would indicate.
1 comment:
Im suprised as to how well the Eagles did all things considered and I'm impressed by Kolb. I seemed to have forgotten about him since Vick was doing so well and I hope he can keep it up
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