Eagles-Seahawks Notes

A nice and boring game for most of the second half, just the way that true fans like it. Here's some quick thoughts for my fellow Bird fans...

> There's dumb, there's remarkably stupid, and there's stopping the clock with a spike on thid down. Honestly, I've been watching football for a really long time now, and I've never seen a worse play by a quarterback, then to forget what down it was in the two-minute drill. I'm not sure that Seneca Wallace can recover from this, but the word "recovery" implies returning to competence. Not so much.

> Total penalties against the Eagles today: one. According to the box score, it was a 15-yarder, but as I missed it, it must have been in the last few minutes. For the most part, the team played laundry-free, which is kind of impressive against a team with a loud home crowd.

> One of the things that can just drive you crazy as an Eagles fan is how much Andy Reid puts on McNabb at the start of a game. Donovan has something of the old Brett Favre problem, in that he's rarely at his best from the start of a game... but heaven forbid Cap'n Andy let him ease his way into a game with some easy screens to Westbrook, or some actual running plays.

Instead it was throw, throw, throw, and after a lot of early wildness, the Eagles had three three-and-outs and a 7-0 hole after the defense's only slip of the day, a terrible long pass and run to Koren Robinson.

Thankfully, the Seahawks are a terrible, terrible team, and the defense only made the one mistake. But the Eagles wound up winning this game by 19, which is to say, they scored 26 unanswered points. Yeesh.

> Kevin Curtis looked good today, with six catches for 83 yards and a genuinely great deke and move play when the cornerback thought he was going to the sideline. But the bigger story was the breakout game for Brent Celek, who had 6 catches for 131 yards in his bid to make absolutely, positively sure that LJ Smith isn't with the team next year. You can argue that the Seahawks just didn't cover the TE if you like, but the fact is that Smith has just never been that productive, and at some point, only the numbers matter.

This also, of course, means that the team has hope even if DeSean Jackson hits the rookie wall, and considering that Reggie Brown had a touchdown today... well, let's just say that it's nice that Don's getting a bunch of weapons. Given that they won't have Shane Andrews to create a good short yardage push -- and yes, that surfaced again today, though thankfully David Akers didn't miss his chances -- it's going to be very important that the QB can go in a lot of different directions.

> The next week is the SNF game at home against the Giants, a must-win if the team wants to be considered seriously in the division and conference. Win, and you're just a game back from the Giants, who have a harder schedule going down the stretch. Lose, and you're back in the Probably Not Going To Make It ranks with the Cowboys. If I had to guess, the Giants are the favorite... and I'm kind of hoping they are, really.

Because when the Eagles play well, they can beat anyone -- and that includes a Giants team that was never tested in crushing the Cowboys at home today.

Besides, this is a title town now. Good things happen here, right?