Had Enough Turkey? Feast on and Eagles Victory!

It was a beautiful Sunday to wrap up the long Thanksgiving weekend. Blue skies and 60’s were perfect football weather. But nothing beats the couch after a long, lethargic weekend with a couple of built-in extra days to chill. The game against Washington was a home game at the Linc with the Redskins taking the short ride up interstate 95 to face my Eagles. After the regular pre-game hoopla things got under way.

Now, I have no idea why we started things out giving away a special-teams touchdown with a botched onside kick, but hey…it’s all about the end result and we won. Donovan McNabb looked focused after celebrating his 33rd birthday this past week. He had a sweet Sagittarius Sunday that would have been better if Brent Celek would have managed to catch a ball. He dropped so many balls that I lost count and he completely destroyed my fantasy points momentum. However, I found out later that his hurt thumb was bothering him, so I exhaled and let it go and took a loss in my fantasy league.

Celek became the go-to receiver after another Eagle injury. Number 10 was hot in the first half! But DeSean Jackson took a big hit to his tiny body and missed the rest of the game with a concussion and is questionable for next week. Then in the beginning of the final quarter, wide receiver Jason Avant got injured. Like somebody’s mama in the stands watching her boy get hurt, I was filled with worry seeing player after player leave the game. At least Avant was able to return and Celek never really left the line-up.

However, I can’t say enough about our backfield! They stepped up in aid of our air attack. Sean McCoy had several breakthrough runs as we re-establish our ground game due to Brian Westbrook being out from injuries. The running game helped put us back in the game in the beginning of the 4th quarter after a non existent 3rd quarter. Buckley ran it in from the one yard line and McCoy came back with a 2 point conversion to tie it at 24-24, with a little over 7 minutes left in the game.

Two of my other favorite players made their usual mark on our victory. Asante Samuels had two 2 interceptions that lead to points by David Akers and allowed the Eagles to go into the locker room leading the Skins at the half and Akers also scored the winning points at the end of the game.

With all that sunshine it was a colorful afternoon filled with lots of yellow flags. Although yellow is my favorite color I don’t particularly like to see the yellow flags flying over the field for stupid moves that hold us back. At least they were yellow and not red challenge flags for calls that would in no way be overturned which we’ve seen in far too many games this season.

And I can’t say that I was thrilled by our defensive performance. We gave up avoidable touchdowns, missed tackles and failed to finish a few sacks that led to opportunities for Washington to keep hope alive. It’s almost rude if you ask me, when you give your opponent false hopes and allow them to get the notion that they may actually win and then smack them back to the sorry space they’ve been stuck in.

Final score: Eagles 27 Redskins 24.

Next up for us is Atlanta. They’re pretty beat up too. Matt Ryan and Michael Turner both suffered injuries that took them out of the game. This will also be Michael Vick’s first time facing his former team. That should be interesting since we’re playing in the ATL.

On an NFC note, I’ve been looking into my crystal ball and I predict the Giants will beat Dallas next week and we’ll be in a tie for first place after we win against the Falcons! OK, it’s really a snow globe and not a crystal ball but mark my snowy prediction! We’re headed back to the top of the NFC East. And taking a look at the history of Dallas in December, you can pretty much see an annual pattern emerging with the Brokeback Boys. They choke on all the holiday festivities I guess.

Speaking of festivities, Donovan had plenty of them between Thanksgiving, his birthday, back to back wins, and a new baby McNabb! He’s had lots to be festive about in November. Congratulations Mr. McNabb and let’s go for a third win in a row with the battle of the birds this Sunday!

See you on the sidelines!

Helen “Love My Eagles” Little