This game featured plenty of field goals, again. It featured some bad penalty calls and of course, some last minute excitement and heartbreak for everyone in attendance at Lincoln Financial Field. The Eagles Donovan McNabb looked a little better, but still failed to score a touchdown in the red zone the first three times Philadelphia had the ball inside the Bears’ 20-yard line. On the Eagles second possession, McNabb led the offense masterfully down the field, driving the team 89-yards on a long 16-play 9:13 drive. A nice mix of runs by Brian Westbrook and passes to all the starting receivers setup the Eagles with first-and-goal at the Bears 10-yd line before they were forced top settle for a short David Akers’ 24-yd field goal. That gave the Eagles a 3-0 lead. Later in the second quarter, Akers converted from 33 and 37 yards. That gave Philadelphia a 9-3 lead at halftime. It could have been easily 21-3, if not for a dropped Reggie Brown pass in the end zone or an overthrown pass by McNabb to TE Matt chobel. On the third FG, McNabb overthrew Schobel again on third down again. Just on those 3 drives, the Eagles etched out 199 total yards, but only had 9 points to show for the effort.

In the second half, the Eagles offense grew cold, while the NFL’s 28th ranked offense led by the Bears’ QB Brian Griese led Chicago. Griese replace injured QB Rex Grossman as the started against the Eagles. Griese completed almost 66% of his passes (27-41) for 322 passing yards and 1 TD. The Bears outgained the Eagles 244-110 after halftime. The Bears’ kicker Robbie Gould kicked field goals of 22, 41 and 45 yards giving Chicago the lead at 12-9 with 9:21 left in the game. Then the Eagles offense finally woke up with McNabb quickly driving the Birds on an 8-play, 74-yard TD drive. This time, McNabb completed the TD pass to Matt Schobel from 13-yards out. Then 2 horrendous penalty calls, kept Chicago alive to win this game in the end. The Bears were setup in the shotgun formation and the snap went right through the legs of Brian Griese and the ball appeared to be recovered by Sean Considine at the Bears’ 7-yd line. It looked like the Eagles were in business to put the game away. The ref ruled however, that since the ball did not touch the QB that the play was ruled a false start. The Eagles still held and got the ball back and then they forced the Bears to use up the rest of their timeouts. It seemed as though the Eagles had won again, when Westbrook gained the Eagles a first down on a short pass at the sidelines. The ref again called holding (another phantom call) on Todd Herremans. Then a sack to McNabb forced the Eagles to punt.

The Chicago Bears would start their fateful last-ditch drive at their own 3-yard line. The Eagles Aussie punter in Sav Rocca finally scored the big punt with a perfect punt that went out-of-bounds at the 3-yd line. The Bears had just 1:52 with no timeouts and 97 yards to go. The Bears needed a touchdown and nothing else. Shockingly, with just 9 seconds left, Griese connected with Mushin Mohammad for a 15-yard TD pass to cap an improbable 11-play, 97-yard TD drive to give the Bears a 19-16 win. Eleven plays in less than 2 minutes with no timeouts. NINETY-SEVEN yards and the Eagles could not stop the 28th ranked NFL offense from driving the field. The Eagles even sacked Griese twice on this drive and the Bears converted on long third downs, twice! One lousy play was all that was needed and the Eagles failed. Overall, the Eagles could be 4-2, but are instead 2-4 and squarely in last place in the NFC East. Sitting in the stands and waiting this one out was brutally torturous. You just knew after the Bears recovered from that early sack on this drive, that Chicago was going to win this one. The Eagles blew this one and now must go to Minnesota to face the Vikings next week. Lose that one and you can probably kiss the season away. Hope is fading.