Posted on 10/06/2003 7:34:25 PM PDT by AlwaysLurking
Bill Lyon | McNabb gets by By Bill Lyon Inquirer Columnist
Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb hurdles the Washington Redskins’ Rashad Bauman on his way to a first down during the Eagles’ successful touchdown drive in the fourth quarter. JERRY LODRIGUSS / Inquirer.
In the shadow-streaked gloaming of a golden October day, at the end of one of the most combustible weeks in Philadelphia sports history, the Eagles finally won a game in their new, $512 million playpen.
They did so by the shortest of hairs on their chinny-chin-chins, 27-25, over the pesky and persistent Washington Redskins, and it was as ugly as ugly gets. But at this point, having failed in their first four attempts at the Linc, the Birds were in no position to be picky.
Besides, there are no bonus points for aesthetics. All the Birds know is that they prevailed in one of those games that is played with leg-breaking ferocity. "Physical," these kinds of games are called. Translation: It'll be Wednesday before you can get out of bed without help.
Frankly, the Eagles won this without a spectacular production from their franchise player. They won, in fact, almost in spite of the embattled Donovan McNabb, rather than because of him.
McNabb, embroiled in a controversy not of his own making, bruised his right leg early and was scattershot in his performance, his passes frequently more erratic and sporadic than accurate, and it was difficult not to believe that, even if subconsciously, he was affected by the firestorm that had been ignited by Rush Limbaugh, and perhaps was trying to force the issue.
Certainly such a reaction would only make him human.
McNabb's numbers were pedestrian, and while he threw for one touchdown, he also threw two interceptions, one leading directly to a Redskins touchdown.
Among other assertions, Limbaugh the provocateur had said on a pregame TV show, from which he has since resigned, that McNabb was overrated. This charge flew in the face of facts. But yesterday McNabb was, once again, a subpar shadow of his former self. He has improved only marginally from his first two gruesome games, and is yet to play up to his form of the past.
What matters most is that the Birds have been able to weather his struggles.
After losing their first two, they have won their last two. There seems to be less uncertainty in their effort. Yesterday, they were shaky, to be sure, unable to hold a 10-point lead early and then losing all but two points of an 11-point lead late.
But at least their alarming slide that began this season appears to have been braked. Those Super Bowl aspirations still seem unrealistic off their performance so far, but their season is also only one-fourth done.
They also have deodorized at last the Stink at the Linc. The new place was officially broken in yesterday in true Iggles style - not just with a win but with crowd that was raucous and passionately supportive. Plus, the first fistfights in the stands broke out. So the veneer is gone. Put sawdust on the floor.
For the second game in a row, the Birds got by using a patchwork defensive secondary of rookies and second-year players. Their defense, in fact, schemed and dreamed by wily coordinator Jim Johnson, played heroically.
That defense got to the Redskins' young quarterback, Patrick Ramsey, early. Buffeted about in a three-Eagle maelstrom, he walked woozily to the sideline, and though he played gallantly the rest of the game, there were times when he seemed to show the effects of that battering.
Like McNabb, Ramsey threw two interceptions, one of them a wobbler that was gathered in by defensive end N.D. Kalu, who then loped into the end zone.
With 3 minutes and 10 seconds of the game remaining, Brian Westbrook slithered through a hole at left tackle and 19 yards later was in the end zone.
That made the score 27-16, Birds, and you noted the time, for history purposes: 7:16 p.m. in the East. The Birds had clinched their first Linc win. The Linc Jinx was dead. The crowd agreed. It began to file out.
Oops.
In the ensuing 2 minutes and 57 seconds, Washington scored a field goal and then a touchdown and then was going for the 2-point conversion to get a tie and force overtime, and there was the Redskins receiver, Laveranues Coles, brushing off his defender and pulling away, free in the end zone, the Eagles defensive back Roderick Hood in desperate, flailing, hopeless pursuit, and...
... and Ramsey overthrew him.
By such a slender margin did the Birds prevail.
As for McNabb's conduct during a storm-tossed week, this assessment was forthcoming from the Birds' new fullback, Jon Ritchie, who caught the touchdown pass: "I thought No. 5 handled it like a gentleman. You have to admire the guy. He took something that was swirling around him all week and took it for what it was worth, which wasn't much."
Which is exactly right.
McNabb was X-rayed at halftime, to make sure a bruised right fibula was that and nothing more. He ran with no discernible limp, and in the second half executed a violent, pinwheeling conclusion to a scramble, and rose from that wreckage no worse for the wear.
Then again, this is one tough cookie. Remember that he played a game last season with a broken leg. That, Eagles fans can appreciate.
So politics is your only interest in life?
You don't watch movies or anything?
And the rest of him, too.
So what's wrong with being a girl?
Carolyn
Philadelphia has been a Democrat city of fifty years. Does that answer your question?
Isn't watching something made up meaningless? Why spend that money on it at the theater if it's meaningless?
Please see my Post #19.
I don't care what people do. I do care when cowardly brainless jock morons like the ones on that ESPN pregame show pile on Rush because that's what the rest of the cowardly brainless jock morons are doing.
You're reframing what you said. You said sports was for the brainless because it's meaningless I guess. There are a lot of meaningless things which people take an interest in. You seem to want to put down others for theirs but apparently your meaningless interests are OK. Unless maybe you spend every waking hour watching politics.
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