Eagles beat Redskins, 27-24

Donovan McNabb declined to reveal exactly what he said before the most critical possessions of the Eagles' season yesterday at Lincoln Financial Field.

"I can't do that," he said. "That wouldn't go well in the paper."

The message really didn't matter anyway. It's always more about the execution.

After stumbling and bumbling their way through four three-and-punt possessions to start the second half, McNabb and the Eagles' offense gathered themselves in time to stage a second straight fourth-quarter rally to complete a season sweep of the Washington Redskins with a 27-24 victory.

The Eagles improved to 7-4 and remained a game behind the first-place Dallas Cowboys (8-3) in the NFC East. The Eagles visit Atlanta on Sunday.

"It just gives us that boost of confidence that we can comeback in the fourth quarter," center Jamaal Jackson said. "We can run the ball. We can punch it in when we have to."

They did all of the above without the services of DeSean Jackson, who left midway through the third quarter with a concussion.

The Eagles, who had just two fourth-quarter comebacks in the previous two seasons, used a nice blend of pass and run to put together a 90-yard game-tying touchdown drive and a 66-yard game-winning field goal drive on their final two offensive possessions before McNabb twice took a knee to run out the clock.

"It's not really how you start, it's how you finish," McNabb said. "And I thought this team really came together and was able to pull it out the way it was supposed to be done. The guys stepped up and made big plays for us."

Several Eagles contributed to the rally.

McNabb completed five of his last eight passes for 115 yards on the two crucial drives.

Jason Avant came through with consecutive difficult catches of 46 and 20 yards to trigger the Eagles' 10-play, 90-yard drive that led to the tying score.

"Everything begins to happen when guys make plays," Avant said.

Running backs LeSean McCoy and Leonard Weaver made the next two big plays, covering 23 yards that gave the Eagles a first-and-goal from the 1-yard line.

The Eagles know well the frustration of being that close to the end zone without scoring and there were a lot of locked and uptight dispositions at the Linc when three plays - two handoffs to Eldra Buckley and an incomplete pass - yielded zero yards.

A Redskins penalty for too many men on the field gave the Eagles a mulligan at the start of the goal-line encounter, but McNabb and the offense still were left to deal with a third-and-goal from the 1-yard line.

Jackson said the offensive linemen had already decided the Eagles were going for it on fourth down if they didn't make it on third.

"I don't know what the coaches were thinking," Jackson said.

They didn't have to find out. Thanks to a clear out by left tackle Jason Peters, Buckley burst into the end zone for his first NFL touchdown.

"One thing about being on the goal line, you have to take care of your man," Peters said. "When I kicked the guy out, I knew there was a big hole there. When he scored, I was relieved. We had to score on that one."

Equally as important was the two-point conversion that followed. Eagles coach Andy Reid burned his first timeout after the touchdown.

"I called it just to calm it down a little,? Reid said. "We had enough timeouts left, so we wanted to use one and make sure we had the right play in. We had used some of our two-point plays already when we were down in the red zone."

This time, Reid ordered a shovel pass from McNabb to McCoy.

"Andy ended up making the choice out of about two or three plays," offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg said. "The shovel pass - that's a play that is usually a plus-five [yard gain] for us."

A hole immediately opened for McCoy, but the play nearly went for no gain when the rookie running back got his legs tangled with guard Todd Herremans, who had pulled to kick out the defensive end. McCoy somehow kept his balance and dove into the end zone for the two-point conversion that evened the score at 24.

"I didn't have a great feeling when I saw the end come crashing down," Herremans said. "LeSean made a great effort on that to get across the goal line. While I was hitting my man, I saw LeSean out of the corner of my eye, but I thought it was all bottled up and he just found a way to get in. He's a great athlete."

The defense, which failed miserably at getting off the field on third down for most of the first three quarters, came up with a huge stop on the Redskins' next offensive possession.

Consecutive runs by Rock Cartwright set up a third-and-five situation. Little-known linebacker Tracy White pulled down Cartwright for a two-yard gain on third down after the running back had caught a pass in he flat from quarterback Jason Campbell.

Hunter Smith's punt sailed into the end zone, giving the Eagles the ball on their own 20 with 5:15 remaining.

McNabb threw just twice on the Eagles' game-winning drive, but they were both huge completions to rookie wide receiver Jeremy Maclin. After consecutive runs by McCoy and Weaver got the Eagles to the 32, McNabb went deep down the right sideline for a 35-yard gain to Maclin that placed the ball at the Washington 28.

McNabb and Maclin made life a little easier for kicker David Akers when they connected again on a third-and-five play at the 17.

Four plays later, Akers nailed his fourth field goal of the game, a 32-yarder that made it 27-24.

The defense came through with one more stop when Juqua Parker pressured Campbell into throwing an incompletion on a fourth-and-one play.

In consecutive weeks, the Eagles rallied to win and now they enter December with some positive vibrations.

"It seems like everything bad that can happen has happened and we keep coming out on top," safety Quintin Mikell said. "We need these kinds of games because down the stretch everyone is going to be tough like this."