Eagles Win With Grit
The Eagles were banged and bruised. They came out looking pathetic, raking up an impressive number of first half penalty yards. They gave the Raiders the ball at the 50 to start the game after three consecutive penalties on the kickoff, which included a Bartrum kick out of bounds. They got in the hole early, when the Raiders smoothly moved the ball against an unimpressive Eagles defense. Nothing looked good. McNabb was obviously in pain. They lost Akers on the first kickoff of the game and had no backup. They managed to score a TD, but then their linebacker couldn’t manage to kick the extra point.
But then things started to change. The defense put things together and started to dominate, completely eliminating the Raiders run game. In the second half, the offense came out and put together several impressive scoring drives, led by Westbrook’s heroic effort.
The game was tied with 12 second to go, and the Eagles had put together a very well-executed two-minute drive and gotten the ball down to the 5 yard line. If you were like me and my friends, you couldn’t understand why they didn’t take one more stab at the endzone. But in came Akers, the lame kicker. And despite all my worst fears, he hit the game winning field goal on 1.5 legs.
That game was won on grit. McNabb. The Eagle D (especially Dawk). Westbrook (200+ total yards) and of course Akers. What a win. How gratifying.
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Posted on September 26, 2005 by Micah | Filed Under Eagles, Philadelphia
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