10 observations: Eagles-Cowboys
Before we get to my 10 observations from last night's game, some quick notes.
If you're looking for one place to get all our Eagles coverage, it's
» READ MORE: philly.com's Eagles section.
This has the day's stories and columns from both newspapers, the most recent blog entries, a photo gallery and more.
Today at noon,
Ashley Fox will join us for
» READ MORE: a live chat
about last night's game. Get your questions ready, and be sure to join us.
And don't forget to
» READ MORE: grade the Eagles' performance
. I'll have your results later.
Thanks to everyone who joined me for last night's
» READ MORE: Eagles-Cowboys game chat
. It was a lot of fun despite the result.
» READ MORE: Click here for a transcript
of the chat. Some of these observations come directly from there.
If I see one more Donovan/T.O. feature, I'm going to slam my head into this computer screen. Can we finally just put it to rest? If you missed ESPN's pre-game show, even the hosts seemed tired of it.
said Owens seems jealous of McNabb and would rather be the MVP in a Super Bowl loss than have two catches in a Super Bowl win.
called T.O. a lousy teammate, and
questioned his toughness.
before the game: "If they [the Cowboys] are the frontrunners, it has to stop the losing."
after the game on
: "I love him to death."
The Eagles' offensive drives in the second half: punt, touchdown, fumble, punt, turnover on downs. The defense was awful all game, but the offense had two chances to win it in the fourth quarter and didn't come through.
Why
has so much credibility with fans and teammates: After the botched handoff and the Cowboys' score, the camera showed Westbrook clapping on the sidelines trying to get the offense ready to win the game. It was the critical play in the loss, and appeared to be McNabb's fault, but Westbrook was doing the right thing trying to move past it instead of moping. Give both players credit for taking the blame on the miscue during their press conferences.
It's going to be even tougher to play the Cowboys in future years for two reasons:
and
. Jones, of course, is the Dallas rookie that took a kickoff back for a touchdown. Anyone else get nervous every time he touched the ball? And Garrett called a heck of a game, making great adjustments throughout. In the first half, the Cowboys connected on big plays, and in the second half, they finally got
going, scoring on three consecutive drives from the end of the third quarter to the beginning of the fourth. Give Garrett credit for creating mismatches also:
on T.O.?
on Barber? Those were key on the touchdown plays.
Who says a rookie can't make an immediate contribution in the NFL? We already mentioned Jones for the Cowboys. They also had rookie cornerback
make a nice play to force an incompletion to
. And backup tight end
had a 20-yard catch. For the Eagles, of course,
had his second straight 100-yard game with six catches for 110.
What a weird feeling of frustration and comedy when
was running down the sideline during Jones' 98-yard return.
Maybe the only thing we all agreed on during the chat: Enough with
.
What was up with the lack of injury updates during the game? Isn't that what sideline reporters are for? All of a sudden, we learned two pretty key players --
and
-- were out of the game. Maybe the teams were being mum about the injuries, but this caught my attention.
Nice job by
on the
play. The camera wasn't even on Jackson when he was nearing the end zone, but Tirico was frantically yelling, wondering whether he got in as the play was happening live. By the way, this is not the first time something like this has happened to Jackson. Kudos to ESPN for pointing out that the same thing happened in a high school All-American game. Quality is poor but you get the idea...