Not pretty, but an Eagles win

Not pretty, but an Eagles win
January 5 Philadelphia Inquirer Columnist Bob Ford

"There were plenty of warts on this homely toad of a football game, but in January in the NFL there is no award for style points.

The Eagles left a lot undone on the carpet of the Metrodome today. They did accomplish the only thing that matters in the postseason, though. They survived and moved on.

By beating the Minnesota Vikings, 26-14, in the wild-card round of the playoffs, the Eagles earned a third meeting with the New York Giants. That will arrive at 1 p.m. Sunday at the Meadowlands, and the Eagles will need to play a lot better if they want to make a habit of the surviving-and-moving-on thing.

Two more wins and the Eagles return to the Super Bowl. Three more and they get a parade that might rival the strut down Broad Street enjoyed by the Phillies. That's getting a little ahead of things, particularly for a team that suffered through egregious stretches of poor play this season, but the Eagles have looked like a different team in the last two weeks.

There was something about the way they played today that bodes well for what lies ahead. The Eagles were poised and confident. They played with a calmness that isn't always present. For a change, it was the other team wasting time-outs, tossing up wild passes and showing poor game management.

The Eagles played hard, which was a basic requirement in a football game that became a very tough battle at the line of scrimmage. Say what you might about the maturity of the Vikings, or their overall ability, they hit hard and demand that their opponents do the same or be cowed. The Eagles met that challenge, held their ground and waited for the big play that would put away the win.

It took long enough to arrive. The Eagles still led by just two points with less than seven minutes to play when Brian Westbrook took a screen pass 71 yards for a touchdown. But it did arrive, just as a small handful of other plays proved the difference between the teams today.

Asante Samuel picked off a Tarvaris Jackson pass and returned it for a touchdown, a turnover that had a lot more to do with Jackson than it did Samuel, but nevertheless. DeSean Jackson returned a punt 62 yards to set up one field goal and hauled in a 34-yard sideline pass to set up another. Then there was Westbrook's play, which decided things.

"That's how you win," cornerback Sheldon Brown said. "You don't give them big plays and you get some yourself. It's pretty simple."

What wasn't simple for the Eagles for much of the season is becoming easier, apparently. As important as those standout plays were a pair of Eagles' drives in the second half that started at their own 5-yard line and their own 4-yard line, with the Eagles still holding that slight two-point lead. Go three-and-out either time and the Vikings would have probably at least taken the lead with a field goal.

Donovan McNabb worked them out of those holes, however. On the first drive, he converted a third-and-11 pass to Jason AvaLink