The Philadelphia Eagles came out of the gates and never looked back. The Birds scored 48 points, the most scored during a regular season game since they beat New England 48-20 back on November 4, 1990. The 31 point difference was also their greatest margin of victory since the infamous drubbing of the 49ers back on October 2, 1995. The Eagles won that game 40-8. The 33 first downs are the second most in team history (34 vs Baltimore Colts, Nov. 15, 1981). To say the Philadelphia Eagles clobbered the hapless Vikings is an understatement. They not only ran all over and around them, it was complete and utter domination. The Eagles wracked up 487 total yards on the way to a 48-17 win and to pace them to a 5-3 record. The win also kept them a 1/2 game up on the New York Giants who also won 17-10 against the Cardinals.

The Eagles were led by the improving Duce Staley who rushed for 146 yards on 17 carries, while also catching 6 Donovan McNabb passes for another 85 yards. Those cheers you hear from the 700 level are for Duce Staley. "Duuuuuuuuce!" The Duce was loose for a total combined 231 yards and one touchdown. But it was Donovan McNabb who led the way. McNabb was only 19 for 29 and 223 yards, but had 3 touchdown passes and only 1 sack. On the other hand, Dante Culpepper was 21 for 35 and 285 yards, many of those after the game was way out of hand. He was intercepted once and sacked 6 times. One of those sacks was by Hugh Douglas who finished with 2 1/2 on the day and that all important forced fumble. That fumble happened only 2 plays after the Eagles took a 17-3 lead early in the second quarter. James Thrash caught a short pass and ran it in down the middle and untouched for his second touchdown of the game. Then after an interception by Troy Vincent, McNabb and company took the ball 49 yards and 4 plays, capped by a Correll Buckhalter 1 yard run and a 31-3 lead. The Vikes answered quickly with a great catch by Cris Carter, but the Vikes trailed 31-10 at the half.

More of the same in the second half, as Philadelphia took their first second half possession and turned it into 7 more points on a Duce Staley 44 yard run for a touchdown. The Eagles would score two more touchdowns. The last one was a short pass to Mike Bartrum, the Eagles longsnapper. It was only his third career touchdown catch, but first ever with the Eagles. The defense was tremendous, holding the pro-bowl tandum of Cris Carter and Randy Moss to 12 catches and 176 yards, with 130 of those coming late in the second half. Moss didn't get his touchdown until the last 3 minutes in the game and by that time, it was garbage time. The Eagles enjoyed one of their finer days and just whipped up on the Minnesota Vikings who were sent licking their wounds for a matchup against the Eagles arch-rival, New York Giants. The Eagles even converted 4 of 8 3rd downs at a 50% rate. They had averaged a lowly 29.6% going into the game. The Vikings running game never got going as they only rushed for only 56 yards on 21 carries. Dante Culpepper rushed for 21 of those yards, but was mostly running for his life during most of the game. At 5-3, the Eagles will travel to Dallas for their last meeting of the year against the Cowboys.