A Last Look Back

Before posting predictions and projections about the upcoming 2004 season, let’s take one last look at 2003- and what might have been. Certainly the biggest lesson learned from 2003 is how fickle the NFL and the Eagles in particular can be. The season started off with so much promise, then descended into near unbridled panic, and finally wound up with the Eagles hosting the NFC championship game again. The other lesson from last season is how important momentum can be and how large single plays and certain games ultimately loom for both the Eagles and their opponents.

I couldn’t decide of whether to do two separate top 10 lists of the best and worst plays of the season or just to lump them all together. What I settled on was to do label it the most critical plays (both good and bad) and see how that turns out.

11. 1 LJ Smith drops the touchdown pass from Koy Detmer on 4th and goal vs. Tampa in the very first game at the Linc. Who knows how that game plays out if the Eagles actually go up 7-0 in the first quarter. As it was, they got shutout and gave a subtle hint at how anemic their offense would be in the early part of the season.

10. The onside kick to start the game in Dallas that backfired utterly when the Cowboys retuned it for a TD. It was the margin of difference in the final score, but spoke volumes of Andy Reid’s psychology. It was the onside kick that started the season vs. Dallas in 2001 that sent the unmistakable message that the Eagles were a team not to be taken lightly. The 2003 onside kick seemed to be an attempt to reclaim some of that magic and some of that swagger. Instead it highlighted that the Cowboys were now being coached by a professional and not Dave Campo.

9. The Eagles defense stuffs Stephen Davis on 4th and inches inside the red zone during the Panthers-Eagles game. Carolina didn’t score, but the play was a huge lift to a defense that had come under withering criticism for being unable to stop the run. John Kasay inexplicably missing 3 FGs and an extra point also helped the Eagles cause.

8. Brian Westbrook’s 62 yard TD run in Buffalo that sealed the win for the Eagles in the must win game of the season. That the must win game came in week 3 speaks to just how horrid the start was in the first two games of the season.

7. Eagles deflect Patrich Ramsay’s 2 point conversion attempt that would have tied the score with less than a minute to go as the Redskins late rally falls short, 27-25. I think much maligned Lito Sheppard was the one that defensed the pass, but can’t say for certain. The Eagles were comfortably ahead for most of the game and having Washington tie it, much less perhaps winning in OT would have been a disaster. Somehow, this play is kind of forgotten in shaping the Eagles’ season, probably because it came a week before Brian Westbrook’s punt return TD against the Gints. The loss knocked Washington into a tailspin from which they never really recovered.

6. The Eagles stuffing Green Bay on fourth and goal from the one in the divisional playoff. I believe it was Jerome McDougle who made the tackle, but Corey Simon? Who blew up the play with his penetration.

5. Koy Detmer’s INT at the goal line with five minutes to go in the game. In some ways, it was eerily similar to the pick McNabb threw the year before to Ronde Barber. In both instances, the Eagles were rallying on long drives that would have put them within one score in the last five minutes of the game and with the momentum shifting to the home team. Each pick was game, set, match.

4. DeShaun Foster breaking tackle after tackle, most of them Simoneau’s, before scoring the Panthers’ second TD in the champ. game. How different would the fourth quarter have played out had the Panthers only been ahead 10-3 instead of 14-3.

3. Freddie Mitchell’s 4th and 26 catch. ‘Nuff said on this fantastically amazing play. A pity the Eagles didn’t make the super bowl at which point this play becomes legendary as opposed to merely stupendous. It’s also worth noting that for a passer who experts say has questionable accuracy, McNabb threaded the needle on the pass with the entire season on the line.

2. McNabb being “tackled” by Carolina LB Greg Favors in the NFC championship, separating McNabb’s ribs and assuring that the Eagles’ best player would not be 100% healthy for the second straight championship game. For all of the league’s emphasis on protecting QBs, the fact that an LB was allowed to dive into a prone QB --- one of the league’s premier players in the second biggest game of the season --- without some sort of penalty being called, unnecessary roughness? remains mystifying.

1. Brian Westbrook’s game winning TD punt return in the last minute of the Eagles-Giants game. It’s hard to overstate just how bad and listless the Eagles looked during this game. Westbrook’s return shifted most of the focus on McNabb’s thumb (remember that issue?). The Westbrook play also had the twin benefit of dealing a severe blow to a division rival. Although the Jints won their next two games, its to ponder if NYG wouldn’t have gone into the nosedive they did if they hadn’t loss this game in such gut wrenching fashion.