Die Nasty

This article was originally published in the Daily News on February 7, 2005.

The feeling in the Eagles' locker room afterward wasn't desolate. Somber, certainly, but not desolate.

Certainly not "we-lost-another-NFC-Championship-Game" desolate.

Maybe in the coming days and weeks, the Eagles will look at the tape and realize how close they were to something unbelievable, something that would have changed the whole sports dialogue in Philadelphia. A little less time frittered away on their final scoring drive could have made the difference. A better bounce on David Akers' onside kick could have made the difference. If Donovan McNabb had been a little less off-balance early, opportunities were there to grab a bigger lead.

But the second-guessing will flourish only once the sharp edges of this game get a little blurrier, because last night, the Eagles realized they lost to a better team.

Yes, the final score of Super Bowl XXXIX was only 24-21, and McNabb threw for 357 yards, and Terrell Owens was amazing, catching nine passes for 122 yards with two surgical screws in his right ankle.

But the New England Patriots, who cemented their dynasty credentials with their third Super Bowl victory in 4 years, made the plays they needed to make to win, which is what has happened in every one of those Super Bowls.

"I bet you everyone was on the edge of their seats when we went back out there with 50-some seconds left," McNabb said wistfully, after completing 30 of 51 passes for three touchdowns, but also three interceptions. "We possibly could have won that game. "

As poignant rallying cries go, it lacked a little something. And so did the Eagles, who came close to completing the quest that began when veterans reported to Lehigh 190 days earlier, but never seemed really ready to win this game, even when McNabb hit Greg Lewis with a 30-yard touchdown pass to get them within three points with 1 minute, 48 seconds left.

"Time wasn't on our side," Owens concluded after L.J. Smith volleyballed a last-gasp McNabb pass to Patriots safety Rodney Harrison, extinguishing the Birds' hopes with 9 seconds remaining.

"It was a tough game," said Pats QB Tom Brady (23 of 33 for 236 yards and two TDs). "They gave us everything we could handle in the first half, but we made a few nice plays, and the defense really stepped up. "

The Eagles came in as seven-point underdogs. To win, they needed for McNabb to outplay Brady, which he didn't, and they needed for Andy Reid to do something that would make Bill Belichick adjust, rather than the other way around.

"You had two good football teams playing each other, and you can't turn the football over," said Reid, whose team managed to force only one turnover from the Pats. "That's the name of the game. "

After all that talk about the Eagles trying to block against a 3-4 defense, New England actually played with linebacker Rosevelt Colvin as a down lineman most of the time, in effect showing a 4-3, Eagles offensive coordinator Brad Childress said afterward.

Childress' team ended up being able to rush for only 45 yards, on 17 carries. McNabb was sacked four times. Childress said the Pats' excellent linebackers plugged the gaps. He said McNabb "threw some through the eye of a needle and threw some he'd probably like to have back. "

Childress said the Eagles opted not to hurry on their final scoring drive because "you're limited in scope when you get into a 2-minute offense. "

"They were getting off blocks well," Eagles center Hank Fraley said. "I definitely didn't play a good game tonight. I don't want to watch this film. "

Offensive tackle Jon Runyan, who came even closer in his previous Super Bowl experience, 5 years ago with the Titans, said he still thought the Birds were going to win it, even when they started from the 4 with 46 seconds left.

"Every time we got in a drive that had rhythm, we ended up scoring," Runyan said. "All we needed at the end was one guy to make a play and one guy to miss a tackle. "

But linebacker Ike Reese conceded that the Patriots "did what they normally do. "

"When the game got tight, they forced turnovers," he said.

The Eagles had taken great pride in not making the turnovers that the Patriots prey upon, but the Birds gave up two of them in a jittery first quarter. In fact, the Pats' defenders actually came away with the ball four times, but the Eagles challenged a McNabb fumble on their first possession, correctly divining that McNabb's knee had hit the ground before he lost the ball, and then an Asante Samuel end-zone interception was overturned by a penalty.

The penalty, an illegal-contact call on Roman Phifer, working against Smith, gave the Birds a first down on the New England 19, but on the very next play, McNabb wafted an underthrown balloon to Brian Westbrook, which New England's Harrison caught.

Another in a series of strong stands by the Eagles' defense amounted to nothing. After forcing a punt from the Pats' 10, and getting the ball back at New England's 45, the Eagles managed to give it away again. This time, Smith was stripped after catching a pass, the Pats' Eugene Wilson recovering at the New Eng-land 38.

But after the next New England punt, McNabb and the Eagles' offense came to life. They drove 81 yards in nine plays, McNabb hitting Smith from 6 yards for the Eagles' first Super Bowl touchdown since Ron Jaworski hit tight end Keith Krepfle in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XV.

The Pats drove from their 13 to the Birds' 4 before Brady botched an exchange with Kevin Faulk, and Eagles defensive tackle Darwin Walker ended up with the ball after an extended scrum.

Right then, everything seemed to be breaking the Eagles' way. They had a lead, they had survived the two turnovers without giving up points, and they had just forced the Pats' first giveaway of the postseason.

But a nothing offensive series and a 29-yard Dirk Johnson punt gave New England the ball back on the Birds' 37, and the Pats scored seven plays later. Brady showed his famous patience, looking at the middle so long, Lito Sheppard stopped covering David Givens in the right corner. Brady's strike to Givens, as Sheppard stood and watched, tied the game with 1:10 left in the first half.

The Eagles' first-half highlights included Owens' three catches for 46 yards, Todd Pinkston's four catches for 82 (before cramps took him from the game), and Derrick Burgess' sack of Brady. Brady's longest completion of the half covered only 16 yards. The Birds also did a strong job against Corey Dillon, except for one run he cut back and took 25 yards. Dillon's other five first-half carries netted 20 yards.

The Birds had an even harder time finding room for Westbrook. He ran for 22 yards on the final play of the half; before that, he'd carried nine times for 14 yards.

Each team managed a TD drive in the third quarter, making this the first Super Bowl tied after three quarters.

The Pats went 69 yards in nine plays, picking on dime corner Matt Ware, and ultimately getting a 2-yard TD catch from linebacker Mike Vrabel, who plays tight end on special occasions.

The Birds came back using Westbrook artfully as a pass receiver, as they maneuvered 74 yards in 10 plays, McNabb threading the tying TD pass between two defenders to Westbrook from 10 yards, with 3:35 left in the third.

But the lead vanished quickly. The Pats went 66 yards in nine plays, making it look easy. Dillon ran it in from the 2 on the third play of the fourth quarter.

A long completion to Branch, along with a Corey Simon roughing the passer penalty, set up a 22-yard Adam Vinatieri field goal that ended up being the difference in the game.

At the time, the Eagles' defense was proud of not giving up another touchdown, giving its offense a chance, but the ensuing slo-mo drive, though it got the Birds close enough to set up a little suspense at the end, ate too much of the clock to allow time for anything less than a miracle.

The Eagles know they have a young team, and though no Super Bowl runner-up has made it back to the game since the Buffalo Bills' run of futility ended in 1994, they have to be favored to do that. Which might have tempered last night's sadness a bit.

"It's going to hurt," middle linebacker Jeremiah Trotter said, "but you've got to keep moving."