Talk about an opening day blitzkrieg. The Eagles offense rolled over the sorry-looking St. Louis Rams 38-3 to start the season. Any questions about Donovan McNabb’s health as starting QB for the Eagles were quickly answered. And now we are all very happy about drafting DeSean Jackson. What a start for the rookie receiver from Cal. Jackson caught 6 passes for 106 yards and added another 97 return yards on 8 punt returns. If you do the math, that’s 203 total yards, breaking the all-time Eagles record for an Eagles rookie, a mark set by Ken Keller with 196 in 1956. He is also the first Eagles receiver to get 100+ receiving yards in his rookie debut since Don Loney caught 8 passes for 115 yards back in 1940.

Right out of the blocks, McNabb struck quickly with a 6-play, 80-yard TD drive, highlighted by a 47-yard deep pass to rookie DeSean Jackson. This drive took just 2:44 to score a TD. Their next possession took a bit longer at 6:20, but the result was still the same. This drive featured Brian Westbrook on 5 touches including a short 5-yd TD pass to LJ Smith that made the score 14-0. In the second quarter, the Eagles offense bogged down a little bit, being forced to punt on three straight occasions. Late in the half, it started to appear that the Eagles would either be forced to punt or just to take a knee for halftime as the Rams defense stopped Westbrook for no gain on the Eagles own 8-yard line. Somehow, McNabb found a wide-open Hank Baskett deep along the left sidelines and the long completion was even longer as some poor tackling led Baskett to taking it to the house for a 92-yard TD with just 1 minute left in the half.

The second half started the same as most of the first half went, with the Eagles punting for a fourth time. So take away those two long passes and the score would have been a lot closer than it really was. But then the Eagles offense struck with resounding success. First rookie Tony Hunt ran into the end zone for his first career NFL TD. Their next possession ended with an Akers 23-yard FG. Then early in the 4th quarter, Westbrook ran off-tackle for a 6-yd TD, the second of the game for the running back. On the whole, Westbrook had a pretty big game, rushing for 91 yards on 19 carries. The afternoon however belonged to Donovan McNabb and the Eagles defense. McNabb finished with a QB rating of 131.0 on a 361-yard passing game with 3 TD’s.

There were some really big stats in this game and none more stood out than what the defense had done to stop the Rams. Yes the Rams racked up 414 total yards. Yes, the offense also scored 5 TD’s. The defense did force one turnover in a game with such a lopsided result. But the defense did hold the Rams offense to just 130 total yards. The defense did sack Rams QB Marc Bulger 4 times and forced 10 total punts. They also completely dominated the St. Louis offense as the Rams did not convert once on third down (0-11). St. Louis managed just 8 first downs, and just 2 in the second half. It was a great start to a promising season and some of the younger players showed some real promise, mostly Jackson and Quintin Demps. Next on the schedule are the Dallas Cowboys on Monday night. It could be the Eagles last game at Texas Stadium as Dallas is set to open their new palace next season. Though the season opened with a cupcake, next week they will have to play even better to win in Dallas.