Eagles, Part I: Beating Up the Wimps from New York

Aaah, sweet football. How we missed it.

It had been approximately 239 days since I'd watched the Eagles play a game that mattered, back on January 18th of this year. And we don't talk about that game, except to wish ever-lasting torment on former Panthers LB Greg Favors, whose late hit on McNabb effectively rendered our QB useless.

But yesterday was a day to dream.

Look, I'm not delusional about this. The Giants stink -- their defense is less credible than Dan Rather. I'm reasonably certain that the Eagles, with or without Terrell Owens, would have beaten the Giants to a bloody pulp yesterday. There are very few truly bad teams in the NFL right now -- the Giants, despite a surfeit of talent, are one of them.

But watching T.O. romp through the Giants secondary yesterday was a revelation. Andy Reid's offense does work, something that was proven by the Birds' late-season charge last year, when they averaged 28 points in the final six regular season games, only to see Brian Westbrook disappear with a torn tricep in the finale. It works even better when you have a talent on the field named Terrell Owens, someone who makes the rest of the players ont he field even better.

Want proof? Todd Pinkston actually performed like a quality #2 receiver yesterday, including one fabulous over-the-shoulder catch of a 53-yard bomb. Westbrook slashed through open holes all over the field, and Freddie Mitchell made more tough grabs over the middle. Tight ends Chad Lewis and L. J. Smith combined for nine catches, 108 yards, and a touchdown.

Of course, the big star was T.O. himself, with three touchdown catches among his team high eight catches. For any old-school Eagles fans, this was the first time we'd seen a Pro Bowl caliber receiver wearing our colors since Irving Fryer's late-career renaissance ended. Hell, it was the first time we'd really seen a game-changing superstar at receiver since the early years of Mike Quick.

And yes, we lost another key player (Shawn Andrews) to injury for the season, but there's nothing we can do about it. We also have a run defense that looks like shredded cheddar, but we'll need to give Jim Johnson a week to work with these guys, since many of them saw their first real action together after an injury-riddled preseason. For now, take heart in the quality work from the supposed weak links at corner, Sheldon Brown and Lito Sheppard, who played a damn good game.

And frankly, nothing matters more than simply getting the win, and they did that yesterday. This team needs to win in January, and it's now built to do that on offense. They have kinks to work out, but they also need to win to get to the postseason. Reid's teams generally start slow, but then pick up the pace by midseason. Generally, finishing the first half of the season at or above .500 means a division title. All that is a little tougher, since the Redskins appear to be tougher compeition than the Cowboys were a year ago, and the Eagles' run D still is a work in progress. But the schedule this season provides few tests, and most of those are at home. If the Eagles are halfway decent on defense by midseason, they will win another division title.

As for yesterday, bask in the knowledge that the first game often means little, as Eagles fans are well aware after the last three years. The last game means a hell of a lot more. Now that we've managed to win the first game of the season, we fans can dream about winning the last one as well.