42 Eagles - Bears Takeaways

We end Week 9 with CFL Reid's attempt to have the most acclaimed .500 team ever, and to continue to mke the punter position pointless. After an oh so subtle World Wide Lemur lead in where a fast black guy fights a big white guy, and Jon Gruden's first knobslob of the night (there will be many!), we've got football. Mike Tirico tells us that the teams have met five straight years. Not sure I've enjoyed any of them. Foreshadowing? Yes!

42) The Eagles kicked it to Devin Hester! And lived, since His Magical Powers do not consist of levitation or teleportation

41) It took Matt Forte two carries to make us all remember that the Eagles run defense is horrible

40) Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie is really good at showing how mad he is before the play is actually over

39) When your defense is calling run blitzes in the first four minutes, that's not exactly encouraging

38) Even the Eagles can make Mike Martz throw to the TE for a TD

37) Jon Gruden's idea of Andy Reid's startling creativity is a play (DeSean Jackson on an end around) that happens several times a game

36) On the second drive, Asante Samuel took a shot in which Tirico called "the most sensitive and painful area", and it wasn't his wallet or ego

35) If you had 12:24 in the second quarter in this week's pool for pointless timeout, you win

34) Startlingly, Vick started getting hit on every down when the Eagles went away from a short passing game

33) If you like to see highly paid CBs jog near the end of a play, you have to love this team

32) Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Vick to Jeremy Maclin for 30 yard completion kept this a game

31) Samuel returned despite a "lacerated groin", which might be the most heroic thing any athlete has ever done, really

30) Alex Henery was good from 47, and would not have been good from 48

29) Brian Rolle's strip and score of Matt Forte was absolutely unprecedented, as was the fact that it didn't get reversed on review

28) DeSean Jackson has made some stupid plays in his Eagles career, but the punt return fumble with a minute left in the half was among his, um, best

27) Jason Babin's roughing the passer flag was downright cagey from the Bears OL with the last-second shove, and gave Chicago four extra points

26) Gruden gave Ron Jaworski grief for actually knowing a non-obvious statistic, like he prepared for his job or something

25) The Lemur crew credited Charles Tillman for a pass defense play that's been PI for the last decade

24) On fourth and inches, they actually looked like a football team on the McCoy conversion

23) Ronnie Brown scored a touchdown, which just goes to prove that Reid will give *anyone* a second chance

22) The Eagles kept kicking it to Hester, then surrounding him, then tackling him

21) Andy Reid won a fumble challenge, proving that we are truly in the End of Days

20) Once again, we learned that Jason Peters in open space is a joy

19) After his third quarter touchdown, McCoy grabbed his Samuel something fierce

18) Seriously, I've never seen a better game for the Eagles kickoff coverage

17) When the ghost of Marion Barber goes for 16 yards in less than 10 carries, your run defense remains horrible

16) Cutler to Bennett on third and long was one more inexcusable play on Rodgers-Cromartie, and a game breaker

15) The Bears' tendency to call awful timeouts on offense against a gassed defense is kind of helpful, really

14) Cutler channeled his inner Favre on multiple plays in the fourth, and then took advantage of the Eagle defense's usual fourth quarter tragedies

13) Earl Bennett is not supposed to make elite level CBs look like rodeo clowns, so maybe the Eagle CBs just aren't elite

12) When your best CB is Joselio Hanson, that's not a good sign

11) The Eagles lost the fourth quarter lead faster than usual tonight

10) We've discovered something else that Chas Henery can't do, i.e., throw a football 15 yards

9) If you had told me that Cutler would go through this game with a clean uniform and no sacks, I'd have been pretty certain that the outcome would not have been in doubt late

8) I think we can pretty much put a fork in the idea that Nnamdi Asomugha is an asset

7) Vick's good QB draw might have helped in the first 56 minutes of the game

6) It's nice to see that no matter who QBs the Eagles, CFL Reid won't have him call two plays in the huddle in a 2-minute drill, and try a running play

5) This was the fourth loss this year after holding a fourth quarter lead, which is a new club record, on the off chance that you think calling this team gutless is in any way unfounded

4) In case anyone wants to blame Maclin for not keeping his feet on the last play of the game, it's not as if Vick threw him a good ball, either

3) Nice of DJ to drop the ball before the hook and lateral nonsense, since he dropped everything else tonight

2) Jason Avant doesn't have to worry about doing anything to get booed tonight, or have any fans on the bandwagon

1) The Eagles are now 0-5 against winning teams