 |
| He's going for distance, he's going for speed. |
5. 14 Seconds of Bliss
I love Donovan McNabb. Hated that he was traded to Washington, hate that he's doing poorly in Washington, hate that they benched him. He was amazing in Philly, and it's a shame they never got him any real talent around him until the twilight of his Eagles career. For years he was downright nasty, a lethal combination of passing and running who was essentially a one man army. There are plenty of memorable McNabb runs, but his 14 second scramble against the Cowboys in 2004 was just plain epic. This was the Monday Night Football game where they opened with a skit where Nicolette Sheridan tries to seduce Terrell Owens to get him to not play against the Cowboys, but he wisely turns her down. There was a mini-controversy about it being a white woman and a black man, it was completely absurd. Anyways, this game was a lot of fun because the Eagles won 49-21. And because of McNabb's ridiculous scramble and bomb. DT Leonardo Carson breaks through the Eagles offensive line and comes straight at McNabb. But Donovan does a spin move to escape his grasp, leaving Carson only an inch of fabric to try to hold on to, because McNabb is McNabb and Carson is some guy you've never heard of from a 6-10 team. McNabb then hightails it to his right as La'Roi Glover stumbles and falls in his general direction. McNabb is then forced to do a 180 at the numbers because Greg Ellis does a good job of containing him. So McNabb runs to the other side of the goddamn field and heaves the ball 60 yards down field to Freddie Mitchell. He's had better throws, he's had better runs, but you'd be hard pressed to find a better run and throw.
4. "They Stop Him Again!"
The 1995 Cowboys were really good. They won the Super Bowl in case you didn't know. The '95 Eagles were good too, they made the playoffs and put up 58 points on the Lions in the first round, then got beat by the Cowboys the next week. So the Cowboys got the Super Bowl, but the Eagles will always have this moment, moral victories and what not. The scene: It's 4th and 1 for the Cowboys from their own 29. They run it right up the Eagles' gut with Emmitt Smith, but he's stopped for no gain. Eagles ball. But wait, the play is whistled dead because the 2 minute warning had come right before the snap. They could hear the groaning from Philly all the way in Texas. If NFL fans were like Colombian soccer fans, they'd have just shot the ref right then and there. So after some time to think it over during the 2 minute warning, the Cowboys decided that they would run the exact same play. Why? Because daggumit, that's what Barry Switzer wanted! Apparently the Eagles called the exact same play too though, because the result was that, yes, they stopped him again as Merrill Reese said. Willie Thomas and Bill Romanowski went flying through the pile to stuff Mr. Dancing With the Stars. The Eagles would go on to win the game to cement the play in Eagles lore.
3. 4th and 26
The name pretty much describes it. Facing a 4th down and 26 yards to go to keep a drive alive to get a game tying FG or game winning TD, things looked pretty dire for the Eagles against the Packers in the 2nd round of the 2003 playoffs. There was 1:12 on the clock, and not that it really mattered for this play, but there were no timeouts left. So whatever they lined up with they would have go with that play, because the combination of McNabb and Reid leads to them never having enough time on the clock. How did the Eagles get to needing 26 yards you ask? Thanks to an incomplete pass on 1st, down, a false start on 2nd down and a sack on the replay of that down. 3rd down was another incompletion. Crazier things have happened in games, but it looked like defeat was inevitable. But not on this day, because Donovan McNabb was a great player. He dropped back and pretty quickly made up his mind: a strike down the middle of the field. Freddie Mitchell, yes, Freddie Mitchell, jumped what felt like 30 feet in the air and snagged McNabb's laser that seemed destined to fall helplessly 50 yards down field. Packers safeties Darren Sharper and Marques Anderson converged on Mitchell, but not before his forward progress had taken him a yard past the first down marker. Freddie Mitchell had his faults, and they were many, but man he made some plays. Also, Aaron Rodgers, he had your TD celebration before you were in the league. David Akers would kick the game tying field goal, and the Eagles would convert a patented season-ending Brett Favre arm punt (seriously, Brian Dawkins caught the ball like it was a punt) into a field goal to win the game and cap off the turn-around.
2. The Miracle at the Meadowlands
It's near impossible to top this, because it's not just one of the best moments in Eagles lore, but it's an all-timer for the history of the NFL. But I can't put it first seeing as how I never saw it live, because I wasn't born yet. Other moments on this list had much bigger implications, but for sheer insanity it can't be topped. The game was all but over, the lousy Giants were going to pull off an upset over the up and coming playoff bound Eagles. They rolled the credits before the play because everyone knew the game was over. The announcers were surely getting their jackets while the Giants came to the line of scrimmage, Dick Vermeil was all ready to try to lift his team's spirits after a tough loss. But then divine intervention happened. Joe Pisarcik fumbled the handoff to Larry Csonka, and Eagles cornerback Herm Edwards picked it up and ran it back to live in infamy. And of course it was Edwards who ran it back, he plays to win the game! Just about any crazy play you've seen has probably happened before, and it'll happen again. But a fumbled snap recovered and run back for a game winning TD? Never say never, but you'll never see that again. It was a play that changed football. Because of that play, no coach will do anything but the victory formation kneel down, so that situation simply won't happen. Nike was right: Impossible is Nothing. (Side note: I met Pisarcik once. He was an ass.)
1. The Miracle at the New Meadowlands
At every game, each NFL team has 45 active players, 8 inactives, 8 practice squad players, players on injured reserve, coaches, assistants, trainers, etc. There are 7 officials, the guys in charge of the K ball, the chain gang, the replay official, the guy with the giant orange oven mitts that signals a TV timeout and other league personnel. The New Meadowlands holds 82,566 people. There are vendors, ushers, security people. There are team employees and the television and radio crews. Being a game between two of the biggest markets in the country, being a matchup with playoff implications on the line, and being the marquee game for FOX, there were tens millions of millions watching at home, and there's also all the people who work behind the scenes to put the NFL on your TV and radio such as myself. And all of these people knew the one thing the Giants could not do is punt it to DeSean Jackson. Some guy in Laos woke up in a cold sweat at 3am or whatever time it was over there right before the punt and went "Jesus, don't kick it to him." They could shank the punt, they could run a fake punt and hope the defense holds on if they don't convert it. With 14 seconds left, they could try to run around and kill the clock and force overtime. They could have put Frank Gifford out there and hope that the Eagles punt return team had the decency to not bowl over an old man or that they didn't counter his appearance with one by Chuck Bednarik. They all would have been stupid plays, but they all would have been better alternatives. Anything but put the ball in the hands of one of the most explosive players in the league. But they did, because Giants punter Matt Dodge is not very good at the one thing he's paid to do: punt a football. Earlier in the year he had trouble receiving the snap, and all year has been lousy at actually punting. Why he wasn't already cut is a mystery, except for the handful of elite ones, kickers and punters are fungible. A little fairness to Dodge, the snap he received was not very good and it forced him to move laterally a bit. But still, you do anything but line drive it to Jackson, which is exactly what he did. And it almost worked, as Jackson muffed the punt. But, as has happened before and will happen again, the muffing made the punt coverage team slow down just enough to open a lane. And Jackson found that lane to cap off a four touchdown 4th quarter and win the game on the last play, and all but clinch the NFC East for the Eagles. Eagles fans rejoiced, Giants fans felt like they got punched in the gut and kneed in the balls at the same time, and everyone else was simply stunned. And all around, babies were spontaneously created.
No comments:
Post a Comment