This was supposed to be the game that might have saved the Eagles season. It didn’t take long for that reality to leave all Eagles fans quickly. Three minutes and twenty-nine seconds and Dallas had the first of many touchdowns on the way to an emphatic 38-17 victory at Lincoln Financial Field. Wasn’t that a gut-wrenching totally embarrassing loss to those hated Cowboys from the “Big D”? A national TV audience watched as the Eagles choked and pissed this disgrace of a NFL game away. Just compare the stats. Number one: Terrell Owens finished the game with 10 catches for 174 yards and ‘1’ 45-yd TD catch, which the former Eagle receiver proceeded to do his famous bird-flapping celebration dance. Number two: Marian Barber and Julius Jones combined for 113 rushing yards and QB Tony Romo tore apart the Eagles vaunted #9 NFL defense as Romo completed 20-25 passes for 324 yards, 3 TD’s and a QB rating of 141.7. On the other side, McNabb had a lousy QB rating of 64 as he was intercepted twice and fumbled the ball on the games first play from scrimmage.

Donovan McNabb fumbled the ball as he was being sacked by the Cowboys DeMarcus Ware on the very first play. Bradie James recovered the ball at the Eagles 37-yard line. Six plays later, Julius Jones scored from 2-yards out. Impressively, the Eagles didn’t give up yet as McNabb drove the offense on an 8-play, 75-yard game-tying TD drive. The key play was a 45-yd pass to Reggie Brown, who was finally tackled at the Dallas 3-3-yard line. Westbrook ran it in on the next play. But right back came the Dallas Cowboys, as Romo drove the ‘Boys 72 yards in just 5:24. The drive was keyed by a couple of passes to Marian Barber for 22 and 14 yards, respectively. The Eagles played some defense and stopped the Cowboys a couple of times in a row, but also failed to move the ball in the same breath as the Dallas defense applied the pressure on Donovan McNabb and the Eagles offense forcing punts. The Eagles Lito Sheppard, then made a big play to get McNabb the ball back at their own 17-yard line with 1:53 left in the half. But McNabb tried to force a pass to Hank Baskett and instead had his pass intercepted by Ken Hamlin. Three plays later, Barber made it 21-7 on an easy 5-yard TD run. So instead of a tied game or at least a 14-10 deficit at the half, the Eagles now trailed by two touchdowns. The disaster is now an avalanche. The second half would just be a formality.

As the second half began, we got to see Terrell Owens do his Eagles impression as he rumbled to the end zone for a 45-yard TD catch. David Akers would add a 36-yd FG 5:01 later to cut the Cowboys lead to 28-10. The Cowboys would respond by marching straight down the field with Jason Witten catching a 20-yd pass. Dallas was in complete control at the Linc, a dead-quiet stadium as most of the fans were long gone. There weren’t any boos as T.O. had his fun. The competitiveness in this game went by the way side with 44 seconds left in the first half. McNabb looked awful and the defense could not stop any running backs and the T.O. show looked pretty impressive. And Dallas still does not have Terry Glenn back from his injury yet. Dallas is now 7-1 and in control of their own destiny. They beat the Giants next week; they will be the team in the East to beat and maybe the conference. As for our Eagles, there is always next season’s draft to look forward to.