DAVID MAIALETTI / Staff photographer
Coach Andy Reid and defensive end Chris Clemons react to Eagles penalty in thrid quarter.
- Eagles chop down inferior Buccaneers
- Vick's role more mild for Eagles with McNabb's return
- Eagles Notebook: Westbrook returns to Eagles but adjusts to secondary role
- Paul Domowitch: Eagles defense sure didn't play like the score against Bucs
- Trotter feels the love from Eagles fans
- Rich Hofmann: Eagles' Maclin goes from holdout to breakout
- Eagles blow out the bad Bucs, 33-14
- Never ending blitz
- Trotter gets warm welcome but has quiet day
- Maclin shines
- Game stats: Eagles 33, Buccaneers 14
- Bob Ford: McNabb is as sharp as ever
- Rich Hofmann: Maclin's time arrives
- Eagletarian: Reid laments penalties, Domo's report card
- The Idle Rich: Eagles pound Bucs
- Moving the Chains: Maclin breaks out for Birds
RELATED STORIES
Paul Domowitch: Eagles defense sure didn't play like the score against Bucs
THOSE WHO prefer to look at the Eagles' defensive glass as half-full today will no doubt dwell on the three interceptions and the three sacks they collected in yesterday's 19-point win over the winless Tampa Bay Bucs.
They will dwell on the fact that they held an opponent to 14 points or fewer for the third time in four games and held Bucs running backs Cadillac Williams and Derrick Ward to a puny 2.8 yards per carry and held quarterback Josh Johnson to 4.8 yards per pass attempt.
Those who prefer to see the glass as half-empty, though, will point to some other things in the 33-14 win.
They will look at the fact that a Bucs offense that came into the game ranked 31st in the league in third-down conversions, converted nine of 18 third-down tries.
They will look at the difficulties the Eagles had containing Bucs tight end Kellen Winslow, who had nine catches for 102 yards and two touchdowns, which isn't good news for a team that has the likes of Tony Gonzalez, Jason Witten, Chris Cooley and Antonio Gates waiting for it in the not too distant future.
And they will look at the 10 penalties the Eagles committed in the game, including two inexcusable ones against the defense - an unnecessary-roughness call against free safety Macho Harris and a facemask penalty on cornerback Asante Samuel at the tail end of a 28-yard run by Derrick Ward.
"If you think that's championship football, nah, that's not championship football," said always brutally honest cornerback Sheldon Brown. "No way. Don't kid yourself. We didn't communicate well on defense. We gave up some big plays because of the communication thing. We've got to improve.
"We've got a lot of people out there learning right now. Every game is important in the [learning] experience. I had to go through those learning years. You have to be patient. Give 'em time. But we had some mistakes. I learned from guys who didn't accept it when I made mistakes, and I'm not going to accept it."
One person to whom Brown was no doubt referring was the rookie Harris. His unnecessary-roughness penalty early in the second quarter turned a hopeless third-and-25 situation for the Bucs into a first down that kept an 18-play drive alive. Later in the quarter, he got victimized by Winslow for the first of his two TDs on a pass in the back of the end zone.
"Give credit to Winslow," said defensive coordinator Sean McDermott. "He's a heck of a player. They use him well in that offense. But the tight end passing game is something we need to do a better job on.''
McDermott called a ton of blitzes against Johnson yesterday. "A young quarterback, you want to get after a young quarterback,'' the first-year defensive chief said.
They did. But Johnson was surprisingly resilient, frequently taking advantage of his Michael Vicklike mobility to buy time and find receivers.
"I never ran so many zero blitzes," Brown said. "Jim [Johnson] didn't call this many. Coach McDermott said it. I didn't believe him. But he proved it."
The most disconcerting aspect of the defensive performance yesterday was the inability to get off the field on third down. The Eagles came into the game ranked second in the league in third-down defense. Threw an 0-for-11 third-down shutout against the godawful Chiefs 2 weeks ago. In their Week 1 win over Carolina, the Panthers managed to convert just three of 16 third-down opportunities.
All of that didn't bode well for the Bucs, who had converted just 11 of 51 third-down opportunities in their first four games. But against the Eagles, they converted five of nine in the first half and four of nine in the second half, and finished with a 9-minute time-of-possession advantage.
"Anytime a team can convert 50 percent of their third downs against you, [that's not good]," McDermott said. "I've got to go back and look and see what we did and how we executed.
"They were doing a good job against our blitz package on third down in the first half. They had a nice plan. We came back in the second half and made some adjustments and got a couple of guys free up the middle and on the edge a couple of times."
The soft early season schedule has been a godsend for the Eagles. But the fun is almost over.
"Every NFC East game I've been in has been a knockdown, drag-out game," Brown said. "I don't remember too many blowouts.
"We'll see where it goes. If we can eliminate these penalties and communication errors, then we may have a good football team. We'll see."
Thumbs up
* To quarterback Donovan
McNabb, who had a nearly perfect game against the Bucs, throwing just five incompletions, no interceptions and three touchdown passes after missing two games with a fractured rib.
Thumbs Down
* To safety Sean Jones, who
negated a touchback on David Akers' kickoff following the Eagles' first score by being offsides on the play. On the rekick, the Bucs' Clifton Smith had a 38-yard return.
Send e-mail to pdomo@aol.com
