Boy, do I like seeing the New England Patriots lose…

I don’t care if it was the pre-season.  A loss is a loss. 

Your Philadelphia Eagles beat the Pats 27-17 in their third and most important pre-season game heading into the 2008-2009 campaign.  The score, however, is not that crucial.  Unless you are a degenerate gambler.  By the way, the Eagles covered and hit the over.  Not that I am counting.  To me, though, the most impressive things on Friday night included both the offensive and defensive lines and the special teams units. 

The first and second string o-lines gave up only one sack versus a very strong New England defense.  To make things even better, they accomplished this versus the 3-4 defenses they usually struggle against.  This also marked the return of the Big (Husky) Kid, Shawn Andrews, to the starting line-up.  The collective group kept the Patriots defense off of Donovan and back-up Kevin Kolb enough to generate 280+ passing yards.  They also made sufficient room for the core group of running backs to eclipse the 100 yard mark totaling almost 400 yards of total offense.

The defensive line accounted for three of the Eagles’ four total sacks of New England QBs.  They also held the Patriots’ rushing attack to only 65 total yards (22 of which came from a Matt Cassel run).  This is exact production we needed out of our d-line.  If anyone remembers back to last year’s Super Bowl, the Giants won because of their ability to pressure Tom Brady and throw off the timing of their passing game.  God, I hate praising the Giants.  It’s ok Eagles fans, with the latest news of Giants DE Osi Umenyiora going down for the season with an injury, the Giants return to the promised land just took a HUGE hit.

Finally, how about that Rory Segrest!  Special team genius!  John Harbaugh who? Kidding, kidding.  Well, let’s not anoint Rory to the Pro Football Hall of Fame quite yet, but his special teams units looked mighty stellar on Friday.  Where to begin…well, David Akers was perfect on all of his kicks on the night, converting two field goals and three extra points.  Hell, even Sav Rocca punted the ball well.  But the two highlights of the evening came courtesy of Quintin Demps and DeSean Jackson.  Quintin Demps- you just made the team, young man.  Sean Considine…well, better luck next year.  Demps, the rookie out of UTEP, took a kick-off back for 6 after running over the Pats kicker and running past John Lynch.  By the way, did anyone notice how slow Lynch looked?  Way to make the white man look good, John!  Not too long after the kick-off return by Demps, Jackson fielded a punt cleanly then proceeded to slice and dice his way 76 yards to the house.

At the end of the first half, the Birds led the Pats 24-3 and the starters were pretty much done for the night.  The next stop is against the New York Jets this Thursday in Philly to wrap up the pre-season.  While I would want nothing more than to see us rough up John Madden’s adopted son Brett Favre, I’d rather us head into the season healthy.  So please, Andy, let the starters rest and the back-ups compete for the final roster spot.

Times yours.