Eagles football blog

Warner throws for 4 TDs, Cards stun Eagles 32-25

The Arizona Cardinals rallied to defeat the Philadelphia Eagles 32-25 in the NFC championship Sunday afternoon, earning the first Super Bowl trip in their long and not-so-glorious history.

After the Cardinals jumped out to a 24-6 halftime lead behind a record-tying three touchdown catches by All-Pro wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, the Eagles rallied for a 25-24 lead in the fourth quarter. But Arizona won it on an 8-yard touchdown pass to Tim Hightower from Kurt Warner with 2:53 to play , Warner's fourth touchdown throw.

"That drive where we scored a touchdown at the end of the game and took seven minutes was really the difference," Arizona coach Ken Whisenhunt said. Continue

Eagles upend Super Bowl champions

The ride through history stopped in New Jersey this afternoon.It continues to the West.

Brent Celek's 1-yard touchdown catch from Donovan McNabb early in the fourth quarter put the stamp on the Eagles' 23-11 upset of the defending Super Bowl champions at Giants Stadium and propelled them into the NFC title game for the fifth time in coach Andy Reid's 10 seasons.

Riding a stifling defense, and getting two touchdowns from McNabb and three field goals  from David Akers, the Eagles became the first NFC sixth seed in NFL history to upset a top seed. Continue

Eagles win ugly, but they win

There were plenty of warts on this homely toad of a football game, but in January in the NFL there is no award for style points.

The Eagles left a lot undone on the carpet of the Metrodome yesterday. They did accomplish the only thing that matters in the postseason, though. They survived and moved on.

By beating the Minnesota Vikings, 26-14, in the wild-card round of the playoffs, the Eagles earned a third meeting with the New York Giants. That will arrive at 1 p.m. Sunday at the Meadowlands, and the Eagles will need to play a lot better if they want to make a habit of the surviving-and-moving-on thing. Continue

Eagles destroy Dallas, make playoffs

Not many people get to read their own obituary in the newspaper.

The Eagles did last week.

They got to see a vision of the future that may never come to pass now.

"Yeah, I feel kind of revived, I guess," Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb said today at the end of a freakish day that saw his left-for-dead team rout the Dallas Cowboys, 44-6, at Lincoln Financial Field and claim the final wild-card playoff spot in the NFC.

It was a warm day in December, but this sequence of events went way beyond ridiculous. Continue

Redskins' stop at 1-yard line results in 10-3 win

- Still in full uniform long after the game was over, Reggie Brown sat silently with his hands on his lap, staring down into his locker.

Finally, after a shower, the Philadelphia Eagles receiver returned to reflect on the play that fell 1 yard short at the end of a 10-3 loss to the Washington Redskins , a play that kept his team from having a chance to control its playoff destiny.

"I just wanted to get my hands on the ball," Brown said. "And they were there to jump on me." Continue

Eagles breeze by Cleveland, 30-10

he Eagles hadn't enjoyed many of these loosen-the-belt-and-exhale games since the season opener, which last night's balmy weather evoked.

The outcome of their 30-10 victory was never in doubt, after valiant Hank Baskett ran down cornerback Brandon McDonald at the Birds' 7 on a near-disaster of a final play of the first half. Lots of stat-building ensued against a Cleveland Browns team that mostly looked like it would rather have been somewhere else, would have preferred to quietly shuffle toward the end of its season far from the harsh glare of the "Monday Night Football" spotlight. Continue

Eagles clicked on all levels in this one

 Jim Johnson squinted through the gusting wind yesterday and saw something familiar, something he hadn't seen lately.

"I think we looked like a football team on all three sides of the ball," Johnson, the Eagles' veteran defensive coordinator, said. "This was a big win for us. We had to win to stay in the playoff hunt."

Desperation has a fascinating effect on people. The Eagles' season dangles by the most frayed of threads. There is no time or tolerance now for conceits about offensive philosophy or for self-delusion. A team that has frittered winnable games away all season showed up at Giants Stadium with a simple mission. Continue

Eagles make it look easy as they feast on Cardinals

 Suddenly, nothing was a problem for the Eagles last night, in a 48-20 victory over the Arizona Cardinals.

Third-and-1? Kyle Eckel in a cameo, up the gut for 2. Third-and-23? Throw it to DeSean Jackson and watch him turn the corner for 24.

Donovan McNabb? Seldom more efficient, though he kept it short, throwing again and again underneath a clueless Cardinals secondary, finishing 27-for-39 for 260 yards, four touchdowns and a 121.7 passer rating. McNabb did not turn the ball over, after doing so seven times in his previous seven quarters. This time, when Kevin Kolb trotted onto the field with 4 minutes, 15 seconds left, McNabb was happy to see it. Continue

Ravens beat Eagles; McNabb pulled after 1st half

Pulled at halftime after a second straight dreadful performance, a perfectly healthy Donovan McNabb was asked the last time he left a game under similar circumstances.

"Never," he replied, shaking his head. "Never."

While Kevin Kolb ran the Philadelphia offense, McNabb watched stoically from the sideline as the Baltimore Ravens beat the Eagles 36-7 on Sunday, presenting first-year coach John Harbaugh with a lopsided victory over the team he served as an assistant for 10 years.

McNabb was 8-for-18 for 59 yards with two interceptions and a fumble in the first half , a miserable 13.2 quarterback rating. One week earlier, he threw three interceptions and lost a fumble in an overtime tie with Cincinnati. Continue

Eagles' tie translates to loss

The last time Jon Runyan played in a tie football game, he got a ring at the end of the season. "Inscribed on the inside, it says 9-0-3, Undefeated Big Ten Champions," the offensive tackle said yesterday. He was a 19-year-old freshman at Michigan during that 1992 season and has played a lot of football games since then without leaving a locker room having neither won nor lost.

Until yesterday, that is, when the Eagles played to an execrable 13-13 tie against the Cincinnati Bengals, one of the worst teams in the NFL. Except for a severe crosswind that affected the usually reliable Cincinnati placekicker on a game-winning field-goal attempt, it should have been a loss. Continue