Two battered, injury-ridden, under-achieving NFC rivals went at it Sunday night in Chicago and you knew going in it wasn’t going to be pretty. Although the Eagles got off to a rare great start, the Bears came fighting back (despite QB Jay Cutler’s battle with his own confidence) and actually had the lead at 20-17 going into the 4th quarter. On a relatively balmy night in his old hometown, it would be left to see if Donovan McNabb could muster a come-from-behind drive, or whether Cutler could put Philadelphia down and out for the count.

McNabb did, and Cutler couldn’t.

It came down to The Play: after the Chicago defense rallied behind a series of gang-tackling efforts to pin the Eagles deep in their own territory, CB Charles Tillman did what he does best: he stripped the ball out of Eagle RB LeSean McCoy’s grip at the Eagles’ 37-yard-line. Three plays later, on 4th-and-3, with 11:11 left, the Bears lined up for what could have been the winning score, a FG attempt by Robbie Gould, after DE Vic Abiamiri had forced the issue with a beautiful break-up tackle on a Cutler screen play. Instead, defensive lineman Antonio Dixon, a free-agent pickup by the Eagles, came up huge with a block of the attempt.

The Play… From that point on, the Eagles took charge. McNabb orchestrated a beautifully executed drive made possible by his own 4th-and-1 sneak conversion at the Eagles’ 48 with 10:12 to go.

In efficient succession, the Eagles offense ran: a screen to DeSean Jackson for 8, McCoy around left tackle for 2 and a first down, an out-pattern to Jackson for 5, a down&out to Jeremy Maclin for 11, and FB Leonard Weaver up the middle for 5. That put the Birds at the Chicago 20 after eating almost 5 minutes of clock. After a slant over the middle to Jackson again for 10, McCoy jump-cut a run around left tackle for 10 yards and the TD. With 5:38 left, McNabb and his offensive line had accomplished what many local critics had said they had forgotten how to do: a come-from-behind, time-consuming 4th quarter drive.

There was still time enough for Cutler to engineer his own drive. But the visibly upset QB overthrew rookie WR Johnny Knox on a deep pattern over the Eagles’ hobbled CB Sheldon Brown (hamstring and ankle) with 3:50 left. Knox had three to four steps on Brown, and would never have been stopped had he caught the ball, as the rest of the Eagles D had all-out blitzed on the play.

Winning ugly involves a degree of luck like that. Equally fortunate was the spot LeSean McCoy got on 3rd-and-1 at the Philly 29 and 3:19 to play, just barely getting the first down with literally less than an inch to spare on the spot.

At 2:28 to go, with the Eagles at 3rd-and-4 at their own 35, and Chicago left with no timeouts, the Bears’ DT Tommie Harris made a huge stop on McCoy to force the Eagles to punt one more time. After a not-so-good 38-yarder by P Sav Rocca, Cutler and his offense were down to 4th-and-1 at their own 29, and saw some light when Cutler fired a 6-yard slant to Johnny Knox for first down at the Bear 35 with about a minute to go. But then LB Tracy White made The Save: White tipped a pass after dropping back into coverage on TE Greg Olsen and S Sean Jones picked off the tipped ball to seal the win.

It was a game of gritty statistics and some oddities. Cutler was 24-43 passing for 171 yards, 1 TD and the 1 fatal interception. McNabb was somewhat more prolific, at 23-32 passing for 244 yards, 2 TD’s and 1 interception. But the Eagles’ main offensive accomplishment was their running game. LeSean McCoy carried the ball 20 times for 99 yards and the game-winning TD. Leonard Weaver had his share of good carries, and even Michael Vick chipped in with a 34-yard romp off a delayed QB draw on a 3rd-and-1 in the first quarter’s opening drive. In all, the Eagles produced 157 yards rushing, a stat which provided them a margin of error in other departments, such as the 8 penalties they committed, and more than a couple of blown coverages on defense.

The Bears RB Matt Forte had a difficult night, carrying 14 times for only 34 yards total. Ironically, rookie RB Kahlil Bell, just activated this past week, ran for 72 yards on his very first-ever NFL carry. That happened with 9:59 left in the 2nd quarter and set up another Cutler big miss as he overthrew TE Olsen badly in the end zone, and had to settle for a 28-yard Robbie Gould FG making it Eagles 10-6 at the time.

The Eagles’ WR Jason Avant had opened the scoring with a 15-yard TD catch-and-run of a screen pass, making it 10-0 Eagles with 2:48 left in the first quarter. From there the Bears clawed back, capitalizing on shaky coordination of linebacker assignments by the Eagles and the obvious physical ailments of CB’s Sheldon Brown and Asante Samuel, the latter who actually had to leave the game in the second half with a stinger injury to neck and shoulder. WR DeSean Jackson again came up big with 8 receptions for 107 yards and a TD, a long-gainer of 48 yards. WR Jeremy Maclin had 6 catches for 64 yards, and TE Brent Celek caught 4 for 35 yards, including a 21-yarder.

Chicago got decent games from their WR’s Earl Bennett, Devin Hester and their TE Greg Olsen, but oh the missed opportunities on overthrows by Cutler! Apparently Cutler was determined not to cause any turnover by interception on an underthrown ball. Obviously the 5 INT’s he sufffered the previous week were affecting his mechanics and his psyche on this particular night in Chicago.

As for the Eagles, you take the W, as ugly and lucky as it was, and you head back home to prepare for Washington next Sunday. You’re grateful to survive the Midway, yet you have to feel Donovan McNabb and his offensive line made some great adjustments against the difficulties thrown at them by a Bears’ defense that played stronger than its year-to-date numbers would indicate. DE Alex Brown did some nasty speed-rushing and caused a lot of pressure against McNabb at times. For the most part, LT Jason Peters and RT Winston Justice held up and protected McNabb in the pocket. The Eagles’ DE Trent Cole had a terrific game in getting pressure on Cutler, and had a solo sack. Joe Mays played a lot at MLB and…well, he survived, and he seemed to get better as the game went on. Dmitri Patterson did an okay job of filling in for Samuel at CB. S Macho Harris actually performed very decently as a kick returner, adding to his value to the team. Punting is still an unpredictable problem area for the Eagles, as Sav Rocca had a bad game,which included a 16-yard shank which gave the Bears possession at their own 49 and eventually led to a FG by Robbie Gould which gave Chicago the lead at 12-10 with 10:31 left in the 3rd quarter. But let’s not dwell on the problems today. No matter how lucky or ugly, the Eagles engineered a come-from-behind win on the road in prime-time. We’ll deal with the problems tomorrow.

[Writer's Note: In our continuing experiment with on-line sports betting, we had bet the maximum $50 on the Eagles to cover the -3 point spread against Chicago. By beating the spread, our total bank grows to $150. At the end of the season, all winnings (if any) will be donated to a nationally-recognized charity. Thanks for visiting Eagles Eye!---T.J.]