Yes, it was certainly a Thanksgiving roast at Lincoln Financial Field. But instead of gobbling up turkeys, the team in black was gobbling up Cardinals. In a commercial label read, “ATTACK OF THE BIRDS”, but in reality it was the attack of the Eagles. Though in Philly, we are also proud to call our Eagles the Birds anyway. You don’t hear that expression of the Cards, Ravens or even the Falcons. So in reality, it really was “Attack Of The Birds”. The game was basically over at the end of the 2nd quarter. The ‘Black Birds’ drove their first three possessions to paydirt and with 8:24 left in the second quarter, Philly had a 21-0 lead. Arizona took their next drive and with some accurate passing by QB Kurt Warner, the Cards made it 21-7 on a nice 1-yd pass to Larry Fitzgerald. With 2:58 left however, the Birds were not done. McNabb ran and passed the Eagles 2-minute offense straight down the field, but eventually ran out of time. David Akers kicked a 42-yd FG with 5 seconds left to make the score at the half 24-7 in favor of the Eagles.

Donovan McNabb showed the entire Delaware Valley that he was not done as the Eagles QB completed 27-of-39 passes for 260 yards and 4 TD’s. He also ran for 24 yards and finished with a QB rating of 121.7. It was later revealed, that the QB became a father twice on Monday as his wife delivered twins. He said later that the pregnancy had an effect on his play these last 3-4 weeks, as he was more concerned for his family. I hope this was the reason for his poor play and not the degradation of his skills, as many people around here believe. I even got into a huge argument with a woman cutting my hair as she thought he was done. McNabb was all smiles after he led the dismantling of the Arizona Cardinals, final score 48-20 EAGLES!! He continued his brilliance throughout the third quarter, engineering two more scoring drives for 10 more points. He threw a 9-yd TD pass to Brian Westbrook with 6:22 left in the quarter. The Cards defense had no answer for Westbrook either as he scored four TD’s, becoming the first back in the NFL in over 30 years with 2 rushing TD’s, 2 receiving TD’s and 100+ yards rushing all in the same game. As a team, the Eagles amassed 437 total yards. Westbrook had 130 of those with 110 rushing yards on 22 carries. At the end of the third quarter it was 34-13 on the scoreboard.

Philadelphia did not want to stop there either. After a long 40-yd completion to Fitzgerald, Warner again found the receiver open for a 7-yd TD and the cardinals cut the Eagles lead to 34-20. Quintin Demps returned the ensuing kickoff for 30 yards out to the Eagles 44-yard line. But the Eagles were soon forced to punt. After the Cards got the ball back, Antoine Bolden would fumble away the ball as both Brian Dawkins and Stewart Bradley smacked the receiver, forcing the ball loose. McNabb then found DeSean Jackson for a 5-yard TD. Then a few minutes later, McNabb found Jason Avant open for an 8-yard TD. Now it was Eagles 48, Cardinals 20. With just 5:19 left, Lincoln Financial Field quickly emptied. We left too but not until we sang for the seventh time, “Fly, Eagles Fly”, the official Eagles fight song with fireworks exploding everywhere. But like I said before, the game was over in the second quarter. The Eagles took that opening kickoff and moved the ball right down the field with a 12-play, 70-yard TD drive that consumed 7:04 of time and the Eagles ran the ball 7 times on that first drive. The biggest derisive cheer came on that first drive too as the Eagles were in a 3rd-and-1 situation at the Cards 37-yard line. The newcomer, Kyle Eckel, the team’s newest fullback gained 2 yards straight up the middle for the first down. He got a standing ovation, but it was more of a Bronx cheer. After that, Joselio Hanson intercepted a Kurt Warner pass, giving the Eagles the ball at the Cards 24-yd line. Four straight running plays by Brian Westbrook and it was 14-0. The Eagles made it 21-0 on a 10-play, 60-yard drive, running 6 more plays and a short shuffle pass again to Westbrook and the game was over. The Eagles live to play another day and for all those anti-McNabb fans that thought he was done, HE IS NOT!!

McNABB IS BACK IN BLACK!!!