One week after the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the New York Giants in the Meadowlands in what I call the "Miracle at the Meadowlands IV"; the other New York football team came to town to play a game at Lincoln Financial Field. The Jets at 2-4 and the Eagles struggling at 3-3 met in a nationally televised game on CBS at 4:15 in the afternoon. Chad Pennington played in his first game this season since breaking his hand in the pre-season. The Jets ended up outgaining the Eagles 377 yards to 306. But it was Donovan McNabb who prevailed in an Eagles 24-17 win. The Eagles win spoiled Pennington's return to action. Vinny Testeverde started the game and completed 7 of 11 passes for 112 yards and no INT's. Pennington finished the day 14 of 24, 154 yards and 1 INT. It was Testeverde who engineered the first 10 points for the Jets. Chad was only responsible for the last touchdown even though he played the majority of the game. If the Jets really wanted to win this game, they should of kept Vinny in for the duration. This was especially true with Pennington looking very rusty. In the bigger picture, Pennington is the New York Jets future, not Vinny. Why didn't Herm Edwards just start Chad Pennington outright from the beginning? He will be second guessed on both decisions. Good thing for the Eagles that Pennington was not his old self.

The Eagles quarterback, Donovan McNabb on the other hand looked pretty sharp throughout the entire game. His final numbers read: 141 passing yards, 1 INT and he completed 17 of 23 passes, a 74% completion rate. Much, much better! He also added 18 rushing yards on 2 attempts. McNabb looked sharp as he led the Eagles on 4 separate scoring drives, 3 of them ending with touchdowns. The real hero for the Philadelphia Eagles was for once, Donovan McNabb. It was not even Villanova star Brian Westbrook, who left the game early with what is being described as a high ankle sprain. Correll Buckhalter playing instead, rushed for 100 yards on 15 carries. He scored 2 touchdowns and averaged 6.7 yards per carry. It was his second career 100-yard rushing game. He first scored on a 6-yard rush in the first quarter and later in the second had a 7-yard TD run. Duce Staley added 47 rushing yards on 9 carries with the bulk of his carries coming in the second half. Well anyway, with the Dallas Cowboys loss against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Eagles win over the Jets, Philadelphia improved to 4-3. They are now only 1 game behind the Cowboys for first place in the NFC East.

The teams exchanged leads six times throughout the game. After the Jets struck first on a 30-yard FG, McNabb drove the Eagles 53 yards on 12 plays for the first TD of the game. Testeverde then hit Santana Moss on a 60-yard pass to give New York a 10-7 lead. Halfway through the 2nd quarter, the Eagles retook the lead on a drive that featured some nice Westbrook runs before he was injured. The Jets went ahead after Aaron Beasley intercepted a McNabb pass and ran it back to the Eagles 49-yard line. From there, Pennington took control, driving the Jets 49 yards, which ended with a 21-yard run by Curtis Martin. Donovan McNabb would regain his composure from that untimely mistake and engineered a 7 play 57-yard TD drive. A short 4-yard pass to fullback Jon Ritchie gave the Birds the lead for good. New York would have one more opportunity, but on 4th down and 1 with just over 4 ½ minutes left, it was Darwin Walker who made the big play stopping LaMont Jordan for no gain. David Akers would add a short 30-yard FG for the final points of the game with only 1:12 left on the clock. The Eagles won again despite trailing again in the fourth quarter, though this time did not need luck to win. It was a much improving Donovan McNabb who led the way. Let's hope he will only get better as the season heads towards the playoffs. 4-3 is a hell of lot better than 2-5, which is where the Jets are now.