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Foles wills Eagles to victory

Nick Foles proves a ‘beast’ in leading the Birds to a rock-em, sock-em win over Washington.

Eagles quarterback Nick Foles. (Yong Kim/Staff Photographer)
Eagles quarterback Nick Foles. (Yong Kim/Staff Photographer)Read more

NICK FOLES pried himself off the turf eventually, his recovery aided by a delay caused by the brawl taking place behind him, and then by the official review of the interception he'd just thrown, which turned out to be an incomplete pass.

Foles had been viciously blindsided by Washington defensive lineman Chris Baker at the end of the play, leading Jason Peters to go after Baker, a bunch of Eagles to rush the Washington sideline, and Baker and Peters to be ejected. Now Foles gathered his troops and refocused.

"I don't remember exactly, verbatim what he said, but it was a lot of - 'That's not acceptable. We're at home . . . Let's show that we're going to respond to that in a positive way,' " Eagles guard Dennis Kelly said after his team's tense, taut, electrifying 37-34 victory over the Washington Redskins. "He was very emotional and very passionate."

"He wanted us to rally. He's a beast. Nick's a beast," said wideout Jeremy Maclin, who caught eight passes for 154 yards and the pivotal touchdown, on a drive that began with the fracas over an interception that turned out to have bounced off the turf as Bashaud Breeland caught it. "Dude took a cheap shot. Couldn't hold [Foles] down."

Foles standing tall is probably the headline, on a day when the Eagles' offensive line finished the game with one guy - Todd Herremans - who was a projected starter back in June. Maybe as the week goes on, we'll be more concerned with the abdominal injury Jason Kelce suffered, which seems destined to keep the Birds' standout center out of at least a few games. But today is more about Foles, willing his team to win what he called "a fight . . . literally . . . Guys kept fighting until the end."

"My teammates are fighting for me, so I'm not going to stay down," said Foles, who completed 28 of 42 passes for 325 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions and a 113.7 passer rating. Foles wasn't perfect, but he stuck many of the tough throws he'd missed the first 2 weeks, including the bullet down the seam to Maclin at the end of that eight-play, 76-yard drive, which began with the brawl.

"I'm going to get up for those guys. That's my mindset. It's not a pride thing, where I have to be a tough guy. I know those guys are depending on me, so I'm going to get up and keep fighting for them. They're going to see me up and they're going to keep fighting . . . So I'm not going to sit there and not get up. I'm going to get up no matter what."

The Eagles are the first team in NFL history to win each of their first three games after trailing by at least 10 points in each game. Yesterday, they actually made progress - their biggest deficit was 17-7, with 8:49 left in the first quarter. They'd trailed by at least two TDs in the second half of their previous two games.

Eagles coach Chip Kelly said he doesn't talk "about getting down, or anything like that. We just talk about playing each possession, and I think that's the important thing."

As Kelly noted, for a while it looked like the Eagles weren't going to get enough possessions to do much yesterday. Foles took the field for the first time with 2:01 left in the first quarter, a consequence of sandwiching Chris Polk's 102-yard kickoff return touchdown between two long Redskins TD drives.

The Eagles got very little pressure on Washington quarterback Kirk Cousins all afternoon, and Cousins made simple, quick throws over and over. There's no doubt the Birds missed inside linebacker Mychal Kendricks, an impact player out with a calf strain. Defensive coordinator Bill Davis tried Casey Matthews, Emmanuel Acho and first-round rookie Marcus Smith at Kendricks' spot. Nobody had a Kendricks-sized impact.

The Redskins converted their first six third-down situations, with Cousins spreading the ball around effectively and Alfred Morris grinding out yards at an unspectacular but steady pace (he finished with 77 yards on 23 carries).

Davis' defense caught a little traction in the second half - not as much as in the first two games, but enough to give the offense a chance - and Foles took it from there.

"I thought he made some big-time throws," Kelly said, taking special notice of Foles' go-ahead, 11-yard touchdown throw to Jordan Matthews, the rookie's second of the first half, with 9 seconds left, which Foles lasered past linebacker Perry Riley.

"The one right at the end of the first half that he ripped off the linebacker's ear to Jordan was a big-time throw," Kelly said. "You've got a guy that's just an unbelievable competitor and understands what the game plan was and really took advantage of it."

The game plan this day, with LeSean McCoy taking an early hit to the head and gaining just 22 yards on 20 carries, and Kelly seeming to forget that he employed Darren Sproles, had a lot to do with hitting the wide receivers Foles had missed those first 2 weeks. The total for Maclin, Riley Cooper and Matthews coming into yesterday was 39 targets, 16 catches. Against the Redskins, that trio was targeted 26 times, caught 20 passes for 247 yards and three touchdowns.

"They did some things to kind of take the running game away a little bit, so it was up to us to win the game on the outside, and I think we did that," Maclin said.

It was almost enough to make one forget about DeSean Jackson, who was having a just OK day until he got behind the defense with 2:04 left in the third quarter and reeled in an 81-yard touchdown pass that brought the fading Redskins back to a 27-27 tie. The Eagles had scored 13 points in a row and seemed to be taking over the game, then suddenly there was Jackson, prancing backward and flapping his wings in celebration.

Jackson, who missed practice all week with an AC joint sprain, caught five passes on 11 targets for 117 yards and the TD. Four for 36 before the big one, but that's what he gives you, the lightning strike out of nowhere - as Eagles fans know so well.

The Birds ultimately countered with the brawl-aftermath drive, which Maclin kept alive with a great sideline catch on third-and-8 from the Washington 48, gaining 17 yards only after Kelly challenged the initial no-catch ruling, and then Malcolm Jenkins came up with a huge fourth-quarter interception, for the second game in a row. This time there was no contact that maybe should have been called on Brandon Boykin, just a Cousins overthrow of Niles Paul, with Jenkins making a leaping grab. Cousins, Robert Griffin III's replacement, 19-for-25 in the first half, was just 11-for-23 in the second half, despite a few big gainers.

The Eagles' offense then went nowhere, but Cody Parkey - how big a story would the rookie kicker be right now if this team would just play normal games, where you could focus on something like that? - hammered a 51-yard field goal for a 37-27 lead with 5:55 left.

Of course, Washington wasn't done. A 55-yard screen to Roy Helu set up Helu for a 1-yard TD run, and we went into the final 4 minutes 37-34, the Eagles thankful for the way Kai Forbath had clanked a 33-yard field goal off the right upright, just before the brawl drive.

An Eagles defense that had given up 427 passing yards got third- and fourth-down stops with the ball at the Birds' 41.

"It's three games now where the guys keep scrapping and fighting, and when we need it most, they make plays," Davis said.

The offense still needed a first down to seal it. On second-and-11, Foles found tight end James Casey for 19 yards, and suddenly the frantic, antic afternoon was ending with a kneeldown.

"Biding time a little bit on that last play right there at the end of the game and zipping it to Casey just made - I think when it was necessary, he came up with some big-time throws, and we needed every single one of them today," Kelly said.

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