The Eagles may have won the battle, but lost the war.
Chip Kelly suffered two huge injuries yesterday while beating the Houston Texans, 31-21. And the loss of Nick Foles is probably not the most serious setback facing the Birds.
How many times can you say that when an NFL team loses its starting quarterback.
Foles went down in the first half after landing on his already balky left shoulder. Early indications are a possible collarbone problem that could keep Foles on the sideline for a month.
But the truth is the Eagles lost two quarterbacks yesterday.
They also lost the quarterback of their defense when inside linebacker Demeco Ryans, who makes the Eagles' defensive calls, blew out an Achilles tendon after intercepting a pass. He's done for the year.
Replacing Foles was easy.
Mark Sanchez stepped in and looked right at home in leading the Birds to a huge win that boosts them to 6-2 and alone in first place in the NFC East, what with the Cowboys imploding against the Cardinals.
The Eagles offense looked sharp under Sanchez, who went 15 of 22 for 202 yards, two TDs and two picks. The pace of the Eagles offense actually seemed to increase under Sanchez, and the Eagles also got their vaunted rushing attack back on track, boosted by big efforts from LeSean McCoy, Chris Polk and Darren Sproles.
All you had to to was see the look on his face when Sanchez tossed a perfect pass to wide receiver Jordan Matthews in the end zone to know that he's very comfortable turning over his offense to Sanchez. In fact, Sanchez guided the Birds to TDs on all three of their trips into the red zone, something Foles routinely strugged with this year.
For his part, we again were treated to the good Foles, in hitting Maclin deep down the middle in stride for a TD, and on the very next series making a terrible decision, again throwing off his back foot, leading to a Pick-6.
The Eagles offense will be fine under Mark Sanchez. Kelly now probably has two headaches - trying to figure out how to replaced Ryans on defense, and what he will do if Sanchez leads the Birds to a series of big wins.
Beat writer Bob Grotz zeroes in on the Eagles' struggles in the red zone, and how Sanchez might be the answer to those ills.
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