Quick Observations After Win Over Baltimore

Like many Eagles fans, your heart is still racing two days later after the tension-filled win over the Baltimore Ravens. Many people didn't know what to make of the Eagles after an ugly win over the Cleveland Browns in week one. After their impressive showing against the Bengals on national television, most analysts and TV personalities crowned the Ravens 2-0. After another game-winning touchdown drive engineered by Michael Vick, the Eagles escaped with a win over a good team, which is exactly what Eagles fans wanted to see. After watching the game a couple more times on NFL Game Rewind, here are my quick observations:

Celek electrified the crowd on Sunday. 

- The Eagles hadn't had a QB throw a game-winning TD with less than 2 minutes left in the game since Donovan McNabb did on November 10, 2003. Vick has now done that in back-to-back weeks to start the 2012 season.

- Mike Vick looked very sharp throughout the game. Sure, the INT on the opening drive was inexcusable. But he rebounded after that and played brilliantly, finishing 23-32 for 371 yards with 2 TD (1 rush) and 2 INT. That's a 71.9% completion percentage, 11.6 yards per pass attempt, and only took 2 sacks.

- LeSean McCoy squeezed out every yard possible on a tough Ravens run defense. He made many defenders miss, and there were a lot of plays where he turned a 2-yard loss into a 2-yard gain.

- This is a different DeSean Jackson than last year. The 49-yard reception down the sideline is the best example of that. He knew Ed Reed was coming full speed, and knew he was about to absorb a big blow. But he held on to the ball and got right back up.

- The defensive line only accumulated two sacks against Flacco, but they disrupted the Ravens offense the entire second half. There was never a clean pocket for Flacco to step up into and it forced a lot of underneath throws for the Ravens offense, limiting Flacco to only 5.5 yards per pass attempt.

- DeMeco Ryans and Mychal Kendricks. What else needs to be said?

- The run defense was shaky in the first half, but Juan and company cleaned that up and really contained Ray Rice in the second half. Holding him under 100 yards. (Barely, by one yard. But it sounds nice.)

- Fletcher Cox also looked outstanding. He isn't going to blow up a highlight reel, but he played more snaps than any other d-lineman and had 5 solo tackled, 1 tackle for loss, and even had a batted pass.

Vick's go-ahead TD, 1-yard QB draw.

- Obviously the Eagles can't continue to get away with these turnovers. The fact that they still beat a really good Baltimore team after surrendering AT LEAST 9 points to turnovers, is very encouraging. There's no way they'll continue this absurd pace of carelessness.

I will give a more detailed look at the plays that decided the game later. Follow me on Twitter @Matt_Chastain25 and @eaglesallday95.