Rough Draft

The David Akers Show

If you saw the opening kickoff (any one of the three) you never would have guessed that David Akers would kick a game winning field goal in the final minute of the game.

After the opening kick, Akers crumbled to the ground holding his right leg. He had pulled his right hamstring partway through last week's game, but apparently he had been doing ok in practice. He finally got up and got off the field, but then had to come back on and kick off again because one of the Eagles was offsides. He kicked off again, this time not putting much into it and again dropped to the ground holding his leg. And then rather unbelievably, the Eagles were offsides again. This time Mike Bartrum kicked off but it went out of bounds before reaching the 40 yrd line so the Raiders got the ball at the 50 yard line. It took the Raiders less than three minutes to get a touchdown. Wow, that is so not the way to start off a game.

The whole Eagles team looked off the entire first quarter, like a whole different team from last week. Part way through the second quarter, the Eagles defense really picked up and didn't allow another touchdown until late in the fourth quarter. McNabb was off the entire game (probably due to chest and groin injuries) and made some wildly inaccurate passes and missed wide open receivers several times.

In the second quarter McNabb eventually got in a little groove and connected with Westbrook a couple times which lead to Westbrook's 18 yard touchdown run. Linebacker Mark Simoneau attempted the extra point, but didn't get enough lift on the ball and it hit his own lineman in the back of the head. He's now 1 for 2 on extra points on the year.

McNabb got a little better in the second half, and lead the Eagles to two touchdowns in the third quarter. Akers came on and successfully kicked the extra points (if barely) and pretty much fell to the ground after each one.

With Akers not doing kickoffs, the Raiders were consistently getting amazing field position, but the Eagles defense managed to shut them out in the third quarter. However, late in the fourth quarter the Raiders tied the game at 20 a piece.

The Eagles quickly drove down into what normally would have been field goal range, but they had to keep trying to get a touchdown. Eventually with less than 30 seconds left the Eagles got inside the 10 yard line and Akers came on to attempt the game winning field goal. And he made it! Simply amazing! I don't think there is a tougher kicker in the league.

Other Notes:

• The game was riddled with penalties (13 for Oakland, 10 for Philadelphia). Though I think Oakland's penalties tended to be much worse for them. There were several scoring drives of the Eagles that were kept alive by Oakland penalties.

• The Eagles run defense was superb, holding the Raiders to under 30 yards rushing

• The Eagles offensive line provided amazing protection for McNabb. If Mcnabb hadn't been injured, he almost certainly would have had a repeat performance of last week

• Did I mention David Akers is the man?