In nearly every team sport, when things take a turn for the worse in a game the coach calls a timeout to halt the bloodshed. The Eagles took this basic bit of sports savvy and applied it to a larger scale. It was as if they used their bye-week to call a timeout on their season to regroup. The result: a 27-3 massacre of the floundering Washington Redskins at home that re-energized a city engulfed in a Great Depression of the sporting variety. The Eagles played like a cornered raccoon, viciously showing no mercy to a Redskin team that played like a cornered skunk, just stinking up the place.
This puts the Eagles one game behind the Giants for the lead in the NFC East after the Giants got mauled by the Bears 38-20. While the Bears are arguably one of the top-three teams in the NFL, they too showed that they are mortal when they lost to the AFC East last place Miami Dolphins.
The NFC East is up for grabs at this point, but the Eagles still have ground to make up. Beating the Giants on Dec. 17th is critical at this point, but until then the Eagles have to keep winning, and that will be tough to do.
For instance, this week they travel to Indianapolis to face the “laser, rocket armed” Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts. The match-up has been given main event status by being moved to the 8:15 late night game on ESPN. Peyton Manning will be the good older brother and try to beat up the guys who pick on his little bro, and he might do just that.
McNabb’s mission will be to out-Manning, Peyton Manning. Recently, the Eagles offense has relied more and more on the no-huddle approach which gives McNabb Peyton-like responsibility to audible the play at the line of scrimmage. While Manning has turned play checking into an art, McNabb is no slouch. In fact, he feels right at home calling his own plays.
“I enjoy it,” McNabb said. “I think a lot of the things that we’ve been able to do, we’ve had a lot of success with in the no-huddle.
“If we’re faced with a blitz, I can get us into a different play. If a play is called and I see that we can run it, we’ll be able to execute. If I see a blitz that will get us into something else where I can get the ball to the guys outside, then they’ll be able to make plays for us. So, I’m excited, the guys are excited about what we’ve been able to do in the previous weeks and we’re going to continue to grow with it.”
If the Eagles can beat the Colts, things could get very interesting as the playoffs loom.