And now there is one! The Eagles are the only perfect team left in the NFL. The 7-0 Eagles bested their previous best record of 6-0 back in 1981. They won a scratch-and-claw brawl against the Baltimore Ravens, 15-10. Could this team go all the way and win the Super Bowl? Next week is perhaps their biggest challenge of the season when Philadelphia travels cross state to play the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers are 6-1 after beating the defending champions New England Patriots 34-20 at Heinz Field. Maybe next week, our streak will come to an end too. Maybe not! No team in NFL history has beaten two undefeated teams in 2 consecutive weeks this late into the season. It will be billed as “The State Championship of Pennsylvania”. If the Eagles do manage to win this week, they would become only the 12th team since the dawn of the Super Bowl to go 8-0. Out of those first 11 teams, only 3 did not make it to the Super Bowl: 1975 Vikings, 1990 49ers and last year’s Kansas City Chiefs. Those Niners however lost to the Giants that year in the NFC Championship Game. Both teams started that season 10-0. After Pittsburgh, the Eagles travel to Dallas, then come home against Washington and then travel to New York. If they win this week, they could be 10-0 by the time they travel up the turnpike to the Meadowlands.

Well anyway, we are getting too far ahead of ourselves and if we are not too careful, the Eagles will lose this weekend and fall to 7-1. Of the remaining 9 games, only 3 should be considered really tough games. Those are this week at Pittsburgh, 3 weeks at New York and then 2 days after Christmas in St. Louis. But don’t forget that Philadelphia also has the best road record over the last 4 years at 28-7. Let’s get back to the present. The game against Baltimore turned into a street brawl with the Raven players taken extra cheap shots at Philly players in attempt to intimidate them. First Musa Smith took a personal foul on the opening kickoff. Later on, Maake Kemoeatu hit McNabb in the late way after the play was over. There were many other unnamed instances where the Ravens tried to take the Eagles out of their game. Well, it never worked. Baltimore tried to scare the Eagles into submission on this Halloween Sunday and the “Green Birds” are the team, which came out on top. These Birds did not back down. Ike Reese smacked Deion Sanders causing him to cartwheel head over heels on a punt return. Both safeties, Brian Dawkins and Michael Lewis delivered quite a few bone-crushing tackles on the Raven running backs and tight ends. And lastly, it was Jevon Kearse causing havoc on QB Kyle Boller, sacking him twice and causing him to fumble once. Ike Reese summed it up best when he said; “It felt like The Longest Yard out there today”.

The teams started out trading field goals with Akers finally giving the Eagles the lead for good late in the second quarter when he kicked the 2nd of his 3 FG’s on the day. McNabb led a 10-play 57-yard drive, which ended with a short pass to Owens, who was stopped short of the first down. Akers kicked a 41-yard FG into a stiff wind. It was 6-3 at halftime. Both teams failed to score or even move the ball throughout the third quarter. The first play of the fourth resulted in the last of Akers’ FG’s at 43 yards, which increased the lead to 9-3. The Eagles were starting to take control of the game. Baltimore then went 3 plays and out. When the Eagles got the ball back, McNabb drove the team downfield completing passes to both LJ Smith and Terrell Owens. T.O. actually caught 3 on this drive alone. The last pass culminated in an 11-yard TD, when T.O. broke through 2 tacklers and sprinted into the end zone. But it was what happened after the TD pass that roused most of the Raven players. Owens mocked Ray Lewis by performing his own dance in the end zone to the delight of crowd. It was all fun and an explanation mark on another great day for Owens. He finished with 101 yards on 8 catches and 1 big TD. He made Lewis eat his own words. Later, Lewis called him “a coward”. Ravens DE Anthony Weaver said “It made him sick to his stomach”. But most of the Ravens agreed that in order to stop these celebrations, you must keep him out of scoring touchdowns. T.O. now has 697 yards receiving and 9 TD’s. Nobody can stop him yet! What’s up next in his next celebration?