The night started off so ominously when a fight broke out between linebacker Jeremiah Trotter of the Eagles and Falcons backup cornerback Kevin Mathis. Both players were ejected even before the kickoff. Right then, you sensed that the Eagles were at a disadvantage and the defense might suffer against the potent Atlanta running game. The Falcons came flying and swinging at anybody wearing white and midnight green. They attacked the Eagles front four with a running game featuring Warrick Dunn and Michael Vick, who as a tandem amassed 185 total rushing yards alone. Vick had 68 and Dunn finished with 117 rushing yards. The Eagles were outscored 14-0 in the first quarter and were outgained 150-52. The Eagles defense did bunker down and held Atlanta to only 169 yards the last three quarters. The defense also tightened their chinstraps and held the Falcons off the scoreboard too.

On the other hand, the Eagles offense moved the ball throughout the night, but found many ways to stop every drive except for one. On their first possession, they quickly moved the ball 47 yards on 5 plays, but Akers missed a FG from 49 yards out. The Eagles Brian Dawkins had a monster game with an INT early on to thwart the Falcons first drive. On the Falcons next possession, Dawkins blitzed and sacked Michael Vick for a 10-yard loss and forced a punt. Unfortunately, 2 plays later, McNabb was intercepted and Atlanta moved the ball 58 yards capped by a 7-yard romp and leap into the end zone by QB Michael Vick himself for the early 7-0 lead. Later on, Dawkins stopped a drive in the second quarter when he and Darwin Walker combined for a sack on Vick for a 12-yard loss, which resulted in a fumble. Michael Lewis recovered the ball. A few minutes after Atlanta scored their first TD, Vick connected with Michael Jenkins for a 58-yard pass completion. TJ Duckett pushed his way into the end zone on the next play for a touchdown. It was 14-0 with just 9 seconds left in the first quarter. On a whole, Michael Vick did not have very impressive numbers: 12-for-23 and 156 yards with 0 TD’s, except for a rushing TD. He was intercepted once and fumbled the ball away twice. He finished the game with a lowly QB rating of 55.7.

The Eagles offense was not very good all game at finishing potential scoring drives. They had possessions that reached the Atlanta 32, 43, 27 and 31-yard lines and ended without producing any points. Another drive ended with a FG on the Falcons 24-yard line. Donovan McNabb was hit hard and often throughout the game, but ‘1’ hit in particular by Chad Lavalais almost put the QB out of the game. The resulting hit caused an upper chest injury, which hampered the quarterback, the rest of the game. Though his QB Rating was higher than Vick’s at 68.5, it was still not enough to help the Eagles overcome the game’s early deficit. He finished the game 24-for-45 and 257 yards with a TD. He also was intercepted once and had 2 fumbles. The Eagles struggled all game long to score more points. The reliable David Akers missed 2 FG’s while the offense squandered many opportunities to gain control of the game. But even with the poor start and the bad turnovers, the Eagles were still only down 4 points with over 9 minutes left in the game. They had 2 more possessions after Akers kicked a FG to cut the Atlanta lead to 14-10. The Falcons defense found ways to keep the pressure on #5 to force poor passes which ended mostly with incompletions. This was just one game and coach Andy Reid does not have a particularly good record in season openers, now at 2-6. We’ll see what happens next week when last season worst team in the NFL shows up for the Birds’ home opener. Hopefully, the Eagles beat the 49ers and the offense finishes off the drives they failed at last night.