It's Not in the Cards for the Eagles

Eagles fight an uphill battle and go down to the Cardinals 32 to 25

Well back to the old drawing board.......again. I was really looking forward to an all Pennsylvania Super Bowl to be honest. A few weeks ago I was in a very bad accident that put me out for a spell. That is why you haven't heard from me lately. So with some lingering pains and bruises I was hoping for a big win in Arizona.

And why not they are just the 9 and 7 division winners who padded their wins by playing the 49ers, Rams, and Seahawks twice each. The same Cardinals that have never ever been in an NFC Championship game.

Only problem was that the Eagles were just a 9 and 6 oh and 1 team. Yeah they play in the ground zero division and yeah they were playing well over the last month. But this came down to an evenly matched contest. And the Eagles got out big played. They also got out coached in some areas.

I thought the most damaging chink in the armor was that Arizona was prepared for Jim Johnson and the Eagles pressure packages. For 3 of the 4 quarters Kurt Warner and his unit was a half second ahead of the Eagles blitzes. They seemed to know just where it was coming from also.

Also the Arizona defense often times barely rushed anyone because they were banking on Andy Reid not running the football. And when the Eagles did they were ready.

To paint the whole picture though it should be pointed out their were offensive plays that McNabb and company left on the field. Greg Lewis who has been an afterthought, suddenly was in on the offensive scheme. His drop was huge. Then their was the miss fires from erratic armed McNabb. He is like Jekyll and Hyde when he throws. One minute he threads the needle, the next he makes Hank Baskett scrape a ball of the turf. That play Baskett had miles of real estate in front of him but he never had the chance to head for daylight because he was rolling on the ground after his heroic catch. And it was an easy throw for a QB to make!

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McNabb made similar gaff to Desean Jackson who had a huge running lane open but had to spin back to catch a crossing route. Another play right in front of McNabb. McNabb also missed Kevin Curtis on a side line pass. If Donovan throws down field Curtis has a chance to score. But no, McNabb throws it outside and the ball sails out of bounds.

I am also tired of hearing how dangerous Westbrook is. Because he can be neutralized very easy by a good defense. Heck the Cardinals are not really a good defense and they took him out of the game. He is usually banged up at this point.

In fairness to McNabb he hung in there and did rally the troops back into the game. But it was too pass heavy to get it done. His numbers though were very good. He was 28 for 47 and 375 yards with an 8 yard per attempt average. He threw 3 touchdown passes also. His one INT was a tipped ball. The bad part was he did most of that in the second half.

The Eagles often put McNabb behind an eight ball by making themselves 1 dimensional. They only ran the ball 18 times. And they averaged 5.4 yards per carry. Of course people will say they had to throw they were so far behind. It is not that black and white. Yes if it is getting late in the game you need to step up the urgency. But there was still plenty of time in the game to keep the Cardinals guessing and exposing their 3 man rushes with hard running. But this has been Andy Reid's philosophy for 10 years.

The defense has been strong all year but if they don't hurry a QB the secondary gets exposed. Larry Fitzgerald made a fool out of every DB assigned to him! And Kurt Warner gets rid of the ball quickly and makes blitzing less effective.

Frankly they should have won despite all of the above, because enough plays were there.

By Andy Natalie
ProFootball-fans.com Staff Writer