In the biggest game, the Eagles choke

It was supposed to be a bad omen for the Patriots when head coach Bill Belichick found himself on the wrong sideline. Some wondered if the normally calm and collected man had been so flustered by this game that he was not thinking correctly. Maybe the talks of a dynasty, the Vince Lombardi record, the beating his Patriots were supposed to give the Eagles (according to the odds makers, anyway), had finally gotten to him.

Or maybe the true bad omen came when on the first drive, after a wonderful 32 yard kick return, facing third and three, Donovan McNabb was sacked and apparently fumbled. Forget the fact that the fumble was reversed, the pressure was finally on. Usually the pressure and nervousness subsides after the first pass is completed, but if the quarterback fumbles on the very next play, one can only guess the tension that suddenly hangs over a team.

Mere two drives later, the pressure must have gotten tremendous. Facing a first and goal on the New England eight-yard line, the Eagles must have thought, "Oh my gosh, we might score and take the lead in the Super Bowl!" McNabb promptly gets sacked for a loss of 16. Then McNabb under-throws star receiver Terrell Owens and gets picked off by Asante Samuel. Luckily, the play was reversed by an illegal contact penalty, giving them the ball back, five yards and a first down. Quite a gift, seeing as they were facing second and 24 on that busted play. The pressure subsides. As the more physically gifted team (argue with me all you want, but there are few teams more athletic than one with McNabb, Owens and Jevon Kearse), the Eagles should have a huge edge in a game with the Patriots on their heels.

And then McNabb under-throws Brian Westbrook and gets picked off by Rodney Harrison on the very next play.

You have to wonder if McNabb realized how shaky he looked. His decisions were horrible, he over-threw and under-threw almost every other pass, and he was lucky to have come away with only two meaningful interceptions.

McNabb is not the only one at fault, though.

When safety Eugene Wilson was injured fielding a kick-off, it was believed that the Patriots' secondary was indeed doomed. Wilson is a great coverage safety (converted from cornerback after being drafted and led the team in interceptions this year), so his presence made it possible for the inexperienced cornerbacks to play aggressive defense. Wilson was such an imposing presence that he picked off Ben Roethlisberger twice in the AFC Championship game. With Wilson out, any coach, heck, any quarterback in their right mind should start attacking the Patriots with long passes.

It looked like the Eagles were indeed settling down, driving 74 yards for a touchdown, having four passes of 10 yards or more. They routinely attacked rookie Randall Gay because Wilson was no longer there as a threat.

So answer me this: why did they stop?

The most embarrassing mistakes had to have come at crunch time, though. With 5:40 left in the game and trailing by 10, the Eagles used 3:52 to drive down and score a touchdown. The only clock stoppage was the two-minute warning. Especially crazy was how they never used a no-huddle offense with the clock ticking down to the two-minute warning. They only had two time-outs at the point, so it would be imperative to use as little time as possible, right? By the time they scored, it was down to 1:55 left in the game with only two time outs.

Luckily, the Eagles did manage to force a punt. After letting the Patriots run the game down to 55 seconds.

This is when it seemed like Andy Reid had just given up. Or perhaps McNabb makes horrible decisions in crunch time.

With no time-outs left and 55 seconds on the clock, starting at their own four-yard line, McNabb throws for a gain of one yard to Brian Westbrook… in mid-field. For starters, Westbrook should have dropped it to stop the clock. Second, it took them 24 seconds to get the next play run.

Now with 22 seconds left in the game, facing roughly 65 yards needed to give David Akers a chance, McNabb drops back and fires a shot maybe 30 yards out to the middle of the field. Did they not learn from the play before that if it took them 24 seconds to run a play after a one-yard gain, it would take them a ridiculous amount of time to run another play 30 yards out? Of course, Owens never had a chance on the ball anyways, so the point was moot.

It is embarrassing how the Eagles, after finally reaching the Super Bowl, could not even effectively run a two-minute offense. It is the emphasis of so many coaches and it is such a critical area of the game that it is just mind-boggling how they could have botched it that badly.