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Eagles Notebook: Eagles special teams can't get it done against Bears

CHICAGO - Yesterday was a big step backward for the Eagles in many respects, and Bobby April's special teams units were part of the problem.

CHICAGO - Yesterday was a big step backward for the Eagles in many respects, and Bobby April's special teams units were part of the problem.

Kickoff returns of 46 and 44 yards helped the Bears' offense achieve an average starting point of the 36-yard line, putting a defense that was missing Asante Samuel and Juqua Parker in a less-than-ideal spot.

Devin Hester's 46-yard return of the second-half kickoff was a real nail in the coffin, after a momentum swing on a Michael Vick interception near the end of the first half. Hester jump-started a TD drive that meant the Eagles went from down 14-13, 4 yards from taking the lead at the 2-minute warning to down 28-13 1:31 into the third quarter.

"It was disappointing we couldn't come off some blocks on some of the kick returns," April said after the 31-26 loss. "We gave 'em pretty good field position on a couple of plays, that always hurts our defense. I thought the punt [coverage] team did an excellent job [limiting Hester to one return for 9 yards]. We could have done a lot better on the kickoff coverage."

The kick coverage folks had a chance to make it all right with 1:48 left, when David Akers tried to bloop an onside kick that would have given the Birds a final shot at winning. Bears receiver Johnny Knox caught the hop cleanly, behind a wall of teammates, and sat down. Then he got up and was stripped, but the ruling was that Knox had "given himself up," which indeed seemed to be the case.

"It was the right call," April said. "Those are a crap shoot. We try to make a collision. The closer that thing can be to the 40, the more of a collision and the more bodies who are going to be [there for the ball to bounce off]. It went to about the 43. He hit it good. He tries to hit it right at the 40, so he was a little bit long, but still a good enough quality, a good enough deal that if we could have got through and banged him [the Eagles might have recovered]. When we had to use the holder [because the ball wouldn't stand up], I don't know if made a factor, it probably did. But [because of the hold] we were short a guy in our deployment."

Birdseed

Asked if he'd felt he was close to playing yesterday, defensive end Juqua Parker said, "I felt I could tweak it again." Parker aggravated his hip flexor strain last week against the Giants. He said he didn't know his status for Thursday's game against Houston . . . Defensive tackle Antonio Dixon played yesterday and felt fine, Dixon said afterward . . .Mike Patterson's sack was his first of the season . . . Jason Avant tied his career high with eight catches (for 83 yards).