The Philadelphia Eagles put together arguably their best offensive performance of the season as they bullied the Chicago Bears defense early and often in their 54-11 blowout victory at Lincoln Financial Field. The last time the Eagles scored more than 50 points in a game was back on November 15, 2010 when they beat the Washington Redskins 59-28 under former head coach Andy Reid.
Yes, Nick Foles (21 of 25 for 230 yards, 2 touchdowns and no picks) had a big hand in the Eagles trashing of the Bears’ 29th ranked defense tonight, but for anyone who saw this game in person or on the tube they would know that it was the running game that was responsible for most of the damage done to the Bears defense.
The Eagles’ talented duo of young backs LeSean McCoy and Bryce Brown sautéed the Chicago defense for 248 yards and 3 touchdown runs. Moreover, those two combined to average 9.1 yards per carry on 27 combined carries. McCoy notched his 6th 100 yard game of the season with his 18 carry for 133 yard game tonight. Brown who is only in his second year, collected his first 100 yard game of his career with his 9 carry for 115 yard performance.
Now, next weeks game is huge for the Eagles as they travel to Arlington, Texas to play the Dallas Cowboys. The Eagles need to win that game to get a decent seed for the playoffs as a possible Wild Card team, because right now they are one of the bubble teams for the playoffs. Even if the Eagles win that game they still won’t win the NFC East due partly to their losing 17-3 to the Cowboys back in Week 7; with a loss to the Eagles next week the Cowboys will sit at 5-1 (in the NFC East) and with a win over the Eagles they [Dallas] will sit at 6-0 in the league.
The Bears didn’t even score their first points until just 3 seconds remained in the first half, which took place on a 50 yard Robbie Gould field goal. That made the score 24-3 Philadelphia.
The Bears thought the Eagles were finished administering a butt-whipping, but little did the Bears know that the Eagles were just getting started. Philadelphia went on a 30-8 run in the second half.
Armed with a 24-3 lead early in the third quarter, the Bears added to their own misery when running back Matt Forte was tackled for a safety by Eagle defensive end Cedric Thornton. Forte tried with all his might to escape out of the end zone but his knee ended up touching the area just before the plane of the goal line (with Thornton’s help), which meant that the Eagles had a safety and a 26-3 lead with around 10 minutes left in the third quarter.
The Eagles took advantage of Thornton’s safety with an off left tackle 1 yard touchdown run by McCoy to make the score 33-3 with 7:11 left in the third quarter.
Later in the third quarter Chicago got through a 4th and 5 (from the CHI 35) situation, when quarterback Jay Cutler (20 of 35 for 222 yards, 1 touchdown pass and 1 interception) completed a left side–near the flats area–7 yard pass to receiver Alshon Jeffery (he was held to 6 catches for 76 yards and no scores) who took the pass to the CHI 42 for the first down.
Chicago got themselves out of another 4th down situation on this drive, when Cutler threw a dump off pass to Forte who took the pass up field to the PHI 31 where he was ushered out of bounds by linebacker Mychal Kendricks. That play went for 10 yards on a 4th and 9 situation. Those plays set up a left corner 6 yard touchdown pass from Cutler to Brandon Marshall. The scored got bumped up to 33-11 when Cutler threw complete to a wide open Earl Bennett for the 2-point conversion.
The Eagles were having too much fun in this game because their number three running back Chris Polk got in on the scoring, as he rumbled up the middle then broke a feeble lower body tackle by Bear safety Chris Conte, then finally the runner jumped into the end zone to give his team a 40-11 lead with 11:19 left in the game. Polk made back to back complementary plays for himself and his team as on the ensuing kickoff, he snatched kick returner Devin Hester and tackled the returner at the CHI 16 for just an 8 yard gain.
As if the Bears weren’t already in a hole that they had no chance of climbing out of, seven plays after Polk’s tackle, second year Eagle cornerback Brandon Boykin came out of his coverage then jumped in front of Earl Bennett and intercepted Cutler’s pass, then the defensive back raced 54 yards untouched down the right sideline into the end zone. That score made it 47-11 Eagles with 8:10 left in the game.
Mercifully for the Bears, the Eagles scored their last points of the game with a lot of time left in the game. But said score took place in gut-wrenching fashion for anyone tied into the Bears team. Brown gained 56 percent of his yards on the night, when he followed blocks by center Jason Kelce and right tackle Todd Herremans down the right sideline for a 65 yard touchdown run and an eventual 54-11 advantage with 6:14 left in the game. It took Brown just 8 seconds to run those 65 yards.
Then on the last possession of the game for both teams, quarterback Michael Vick came in and proceeded to take two kneel downs to end the game.
