This game could have been predicted in football camp during those last weeks in August. It certainly was predictable the moment Donovan McNabb went down for the season last week. Peyton Manning only threw for 183 total passing yards, but completed 70% of his passes (14-for-20). He also only threw for 1 TD. Yet the Eagles lost by over 3 full scores. The Eagles QB in Jeff Garcia completed over 82% of his passes (19-for-23), but he only threw for 140 passing yards. Brian Westbrook did rush for over 100 yards again, rushing 20 times for 124 yards. You would of thought the score was more like 17-14 or something similar. Nope, the final score read 45-21. You wonder how that happened when Manning only threw for 1 TD and 183 passing yards. The Colts two running backs combined for 239 yards with Dominic Rhodes gaining 171 yards on 24 carries. Rookie Joseph Addai had a breakout game, scoring 4 touchdowns. That quadruples his career best of one in his previous games this season.

What happened was a Colts stampede that now a very porous defense could not stop and went from bad to worse to outright ridiculous. The four TD’s by Addai also matched the Colts all-time franchise record, most recently accomplished by hall-of-fame running back Eric Dickerson. At least the Eagles tackled a little better than last week, but the defensive line and linebackers were blown away by the Colts offensive line, which is more used to pass blocking. The Colts never gained more than 15 yards per carry during the entire game. Again, the Colts ran the ball 39 times in the game and with a 24-7 halftime lead, there was nothing to do but run the ball in the second half to run out the clock. Peyton Manning is now 3-0 all-time against the Eagles. He also won each of these 3 games by an average of 24 points per game. In these 3 games, the Colts scored 44, 35 and 45 points respectively. He has done it three times without even breaking a sweat. That’s why this was an easy pick. This by far Peyton’s worse game statistically, though the QB completed 70% of his passes. When you can rush for over 200 yards, your team generally always wins in the NFL.

It is totally clear that the Indianapolis Colts are one of the NFL’s premier teams, while the Eagles are floundering in the middle of the pack. But this game also shows how bad the Eagles defense is without Jevon Kearse and a couple of real linebackers. Andy Reid must upgrade at linebacker or else this is probably what we will see in the years to come. is without Jevon Kearse and a couple of real linebackers. Andy Reid must upgrade at linebacker or else this is probably what we will see in the years to come. You can have great coverage and a pretty good defensive line, but with undersized linebackers who cannot fill the gaps are a rushing disaster waiting to happen and these two last weeks, those realities were front and center. First Tennessee and now Indianapolis both plowed through a defense that can’t tackle and seems lost in coverage’s, especially on the tight end and running backs coming out of the backfield. Jeremiah Trotter said it best when asked about how to fix the defense. He said it probably couldn’t be fixed anytime soon, contradicting Andy Reid’s comments during his post-game conference. I know one thing, if the Eagles think they still have a shot, then they better find a way to beat the Panthers this coming Monday night. If not, you can kiss the season away. If not, why not tank the rest of the season to have a legitimate shot at drafting Penn State’s Paul Puslusnky, who could solidify the linebackers. They also need to find a good linebacker in the free agency period (maybe even keep Shawn Barber). At least Barber can make some plays and tackle, unlike Matt McCoy and Dhani Jones!!!