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Here's what you saw if you watched DeSean Jackson run a route today.
You saw the rookie wide receiver shake past the bump of dampened expectations, run a double move on received wisdom about the Eagles offense and then make a fingertip catch of our collective imagination.
Not bad for a second-round pick playing in his first NFL game.
Jackson also demanded an instant correction of the early Internet reports about the Eagles' inactive list. They were not "without their two top receivers" - Kevin Curtis and Reggie Brown - for the season opener against St. Louis. With Jackson, Brian Westbrook, L.J. Smith and Hank Baskett all playing major roles, the Eagles were without their fifth and sixth best offensive weapons.
It took two snaps for Jackson to disabuse us of all those assumptions about wide receivers during the Andy Reid era.
After Donovan McNabb's first pass sailed over his head, Jackson lined up on the right side and beat press coverage by Rams cornerback Tye Hill. McNabb saw the speedy Jackson zipping down the sideline and lofted a perfect throw to catch him in stride.
The 47-yard gain showed what happens when McNabb has a fast, reliable receiver to throw to - something Reid hasn't exactly made a priority in his decade here.
The play proved a rookie can make plays in this offense - something we've been told was virtually impossible because learning the system was like learning theoretical math. In Mandarin.
Best of all, the play bought instant faith from 69,144 hopeful-but-healthily-skeptical fans in Lincoln Financial Field. They so wanted to believe a healthy McNabb and a happy Westbrook and an exciting young Jackson could restore luster to this Eagles offense. Two touchdowns in two possessions and they were sold.
From then on, every time Jackson was involved in a play, the energy in the Linc crackled and popped to another level. It reached full crescendo during Jackson's goosebump-inspiring 60-yard punt return.
"Sometimes you can hear it," Jackson said. "You can hear the fans getting loud and getting crunked. That just you gives the extra juice to go out and make it happen. You know you got the fans behind you and your coaches and teammates. You can't lose."
Ah, rookie innocence.
"Just be patient," McNabb said. "Jackson hasn't hit the bump in the road yet. We're going to do that. I try to prepare him for that. I've seen it happen."
McNabb speaks from experience - his own as well as the parade of underwhelming teammates he has played with: Charles Johnson and Torrance Small, Todd Pinkston and James Thrash, Brown and Freddie Mitchell. Bumps in the road can be Himalayan when you're surrounded by so-so skill players.
That's what makes Jackson so, so exhilarating. He may be the first wideout not named Terrell Owens to provide McNabb a big-play target. Those of us who believe McNabb is a championship-caliber quarterback saddled with wild-card-contender receivers for much of his career have been waiting for this.
In 2004, his one full season with Owens, McNabb took the Eagles to the Super Bowl. Doesn't it stand to reason, then, that he might do so again if he had another elite receiver? Wouldn't it be fun to find out?
It's a tad early to put that label on Jackson, and it would be unfair to "the kid" - as Reid affectionately calls him - to burden him with such expectations.
"Everybody enjoys watching him do his thing," Reid said, in what qualifies as gushing for the stoic head coach.
That is one of the fascinating things here. Reid has always tended toward interchangeable receivers, believing the offense provides the potential. Reid took a chance on Owens only reluctantly and was burned badly for his trouble.
It's impossible to know whether Jackson is what Reid was looking for all along while he was drafting Pinkston and Mitchell and Brown, or whether the coach is simply dazzled enough by "the kid" to bend some of his own rules. Either way, it's a pleasant change to have the Eagles coach and the Eagles fans in agreement about something besides the delectability of cheesesteaks.
Any reaction to this 38-3 blowout has to be tempered by two things: the Rams and the Detroit Lions. The Rams simply aren't all that good. As for the Lions, you may remember the Eagles' 56-21 victory over them last September. McNabb passed for 381 yards and 4 touchdowns in that one.
There is plenty of precedent for one-sided games that turned out to mean nothing.
There is no precedent, at least not in the Reid decade, for a fast, smart, savvy, game-breaking rookie playmaker. Whether these Eagles are for real or not, DeSean Jackson almost certainly is.
Contact columnist Phil Sheridan at 215-854-2844 or psheridan@phillynews.com. Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com/philsheridan.
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