A tale of two halves for Foles, Eagles

The Eagles are this good:

Their Pro Bowl quarterback and their best cornerback can play their worst, and they can still win.

They can be without their second-best, fifth-best and sixth-best offensive linemen, and they can still win.

They can cut their kicker in the last week of the preseason and cut and their top receiver from a playoff season and still win going away.

They can spot a visiting team 17 points in their season opener, commit dumb penalties and make head-scratching play calls (a pass on first-and-goal from the 5, with LeSean McCoy in the backfield and Nick Foles firing blanks?) and they can still win, 34-17, over the Jaguars.

They're so good that they got a 49-yard touchdown run from backup running back Darren Sproles and decent games from backup offensive linemen Andrew Gardner and David Molk.

By halftime, the hapless Jaguars had one short field goal blocked, missed another from long range and saw an Eagles fumble call reversed.

On the one hand, the Eagles could hardly have been luckier.

On the other, they hardly could have been more cursed.

They lost Pro Bowl guard Evan Mathis and starting right tackle Allen Barbre, who was playing in place of right tackle Lane Johnson, who was suspended for four games for a PED violation. Gardner replaced Barbre; Molk, Mathis.

It wasn't luck that had Pro Bowl MVP quarterback Nick Foles channeling his inner Bobby Hoying in the first half.

It was fear.

Foles fumbled three times and lost two of them. He threw an interception in the Jags' end zone from the 5-yard line. He was sacked five times, mainly due to his own reticence. He wouldn't let the ball go, and, so, he got hammered. Foles was 12-for-24 with a interception in the first half.

That changed in the second half, when Foles went 15-for-21 for 183 yards and two touchdowns and no sacks.

It was Foles' the first game without Pro Bowl receiver DeSean Jackson, whom Eagles coach Chip Kelly cut in March to save money and to save the team's delicate chemistry.

It was a chemical nightmare for the first 30 minutes of their season opener.

Receivers occasionally were open, and Foles often missed them, but the safety support was much closer to the line of scrimmage and the safeties didn't cheat to one side or the other, as they did when Jackson was an Eagle.

Also, Foles' deep passes lacked zip. That was not a new development.

The Eagles made the playoffs last season with that hindrance.

They were at least this good last season, too.