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Not all games are created equal.
So despite another rousingly successful year, the Eagles found themselves playing
the final game of the 2003 regular season last night desperately needing to
win it to assure themselves of favorable positioning in the playoffs.
The Birds responded as they have over the last four seasons when forced to go on the road - they won, this time a coldly methodical, efficient battering of the disheveled Washington Redskins, 31-7.
Away from home, the Eagles have more fun than a Shriners convention. In a league
in which breaking even on the road is considered well done, they are now a remarkable
25-7 over the last four seasons.
Thus do they cap a season that began with high hopes but low moments. With the
city aflame with expectations last September, they proceeded to lose their first
two games and their bandwagon emptied like a cattle stampede.
But they regrouped, demonstrated the resolve and resiliency that has become
the hallmark of coach Andy Reid's tenure, and, in one of the more remarkable
runs in the city's sports history, won 12 of their final 14. And so here they
sit on the fourth day of Christmas, NFC East champions for the third straight
year and no worse than the No. 2 seed in the NFC.
Once again, it is OK to hide under the bed and dare to whisper to yourself:
Soup-er Bo...Soup-er...
By winning last night, the Birds assured themselves of a first-round bye in
the playoffs, which carries with it a week of resting and recovering, time off
that is of incalculable value to a team that has played 14 consecutive weeks
and that continues to be bedeviled by a luckless run of injuries.
They also will not have to travel, at least for their first game, when they
do begin the playoffs.
Had they lost last night, they could have been squarely in harm's way, all that
they accomplished the last four months gone up in smoke. So in essence this
was by far the most important game of the season, and the Birds did what a contender
is supposed to do - jump on an already demoralized opponent early and make it
stick all four paws up in the air.
Quarterback Donovan McNabb, who was so horrid at the start of the season, finished
a year of redemption in high style. He accounted for all four Eagles touchdowns,
throwing three scoring passes to three different receivers and running 1 yard
himself.
The Redskins had won only two of their 11 previous games, and if the Birds hadn't
dispatched them with dispatch, they would have deserved whatever befell them.
But they did what they almost always do after a loss, which is rebound nicely.
They lost to San Francisco six days ago, that defeat ending their winning streak
at nine in a row. But with last night's bounce-back, they are now 15-2 under
Reid in games immediately following losses over the last four seasons.
They have also stitched together a gaudy four-season run of, in order: 11-5,
11-5, 12-4 and 12-4. No team in the NFL has won as frequently.
This is how they did it last night:
They get the quick start they want, scoring a touchdown with ease on their very
first possession. McNabb conducts a paper-cut offense, nicking and slicing Washington's
defense with crisp passing.
The Birds' touchdown is the result of a combination of Redskins inattentiveness
and a sly bit of trickery by Philadelphia. The Birds line up their tight end,
Chad Lewis, so far out on the right flank that he is all but out of bounds.
The Skins, caught off guard, have no defender within a cab ride of Lewis, and
McNabb gleefully drills him with a spiral. Rarely is 7-0 so effortlessly achieved.
Their second possession, the Birds score another touchdown, this one an even
more impressive drive, McNabb rolling out to his right and loping into the end
zone untouched, whereupon he breaks into some sort of choreography that is so
bad it is rather good, something between "The Good Ship Lollipop"
and early Michael Jackson.
McNabb does this after whip-cracking the Birds on a scoring drive that seems
to stretch halfway across Antarctica. They cover 96 yards in 14 diverse plays,
keeping the ball for almost nine minutes in the process, and no one is more
appreciative than the Birds' overworked, injury-shot defense, which lolls gratefully
on the sideline, beachcomber-style.
One more touchdown and the dispirited Redskins, wanting only to end this horror
of a season, will probably fold their tents and... whoops, this is no sooner
typed than the Redskins lose a fumble at their own 19-yard line and shortly
afterward McNabb is throwing another touchdown pass, this one to the effervescent
wide receiver Freddie Mitchell, who breaks into his end-zone dance routine.
It is marginally better than McNabb's. This is not especially high praise.
It is now 21-0, Eagles, and surely it is over. On the Washington sideline, coach
Steve Spurrier, who was a genius in college but is now eight games under .500
(12-20) in his two-year NFL career, has the look of a man who has bitten into
an apple and found half a worm.
Whoops again. Word arrives that Brian Westbrook, who in many ways has been the
Birds' most valuable player, is out, having suffered a torn triceps muscle.
This is a damper immediately but could be even more damaging if he is unavailable
for the playoffs.
The Birds still have the sturdy Duce Staley and the slashing Correll Buckhalter
to run the ball, but Westbrook's value is greater, for he is what coaches call
an "anywhere, any-time player," meaning a threat to score from any
place on the field and at any moment in the game.
Buckhalter takes up the slack from Westbrook's absence and takes a pass from
McNabb into the end zone in the third quarter, and launches into his dance routine,
which resembles a man trying to shake dog doo from his shoe sole. Buckhalter's
score caps another one of those cross-continental drives by the Birds - 74 yards
in a dozen plays, McNabb still sharp as blue steel, the defense getting another
holiday.
Now they'll all get a holiday. They earned it.