Late hit on McNabb taints a great day for Eagles over Panthers....

Nobody expected the 38-10 drubbing of the Carolina Panthers by the Philadelphia Eagles on a gorgeous afternoon at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte before a sold-out home-opener crowd of the Panthers' faithful.... Wait---did I say "faithful"? By halftime, half the crowd had left for the exits and the remaining fans were booing QB Jack Delhomme's every move. It got beyond "awkward"---it was ugly. Ironically, the day started out great for Carolina, who led off the game with a 70-yard TD drive that had the Eagles defense reeling on its heels the whole way. Then everything went wrong for the Panthers, mostly due to the long-awaited unveiling of new defensive coordinator Sean McDermott's swarming zone blitzes and 8-man rushes pouring through the Carolina O-line and just teeing off on Jake Delhomme. The Eagles "D" finally showed its true cards, cards we rarely saw played in the preseason. Unbelievably, the Carolina Panthers appeared to be completely unprepared and totally surprised by the Eagles' defensive packages, which featured a lot of movement and changing pieces. For example, DE Trent Cole had a fantastic day for the Eagles, sometimes lining up in the down position at right defensive end, then other times standing up straight over the "A' gap in a new role for him known as "The Joker"... All together, the Panthers suffered 5 sacks, a ton of hurries and 7 turnovers, including 2 INT's by resurrected CB Sheldon Brown and a fumble recovery for a TD by DE Vic Abiamiri. Delhomme himself threw 4 INT's and fumbled once. It was Delhomme's second straight disastrous outing if you count last season's playoff loss to the Cardinals. Mercifully, Delhomme was yanked from the game with 5 minutes left to allow backup QB Josh McCown to finish absorbing the beating. McCown got lousy pass protection, too, and was decked from behind several times before also leaving the game with a knee sprain. The vaunted Carolina running game was contained by the Eagles' patchwork middle and a series of perfect blitzes. RB DeAngelo Williams was held to less than 40 yards rushing. DeSean Jackson came up big with a spectacular 85-yard punt return that stunned the jacked-up crowd early and set the tone for the worst opening day loss in Carolina's 15-year history. RT Winston Justice did OK lining up against the great DE Julius Peppers. Peppers only beat Justice twice the entire game, once with a spin move. LT Jason Peters also showed up very nicely, doing a tremendous job of stopping the rush. But unfortunately for the Eagles the silver cloud had a grey lining, as Donovan McNabb suffered a broken left rib as he was tackled on a 3-yard TD run making it 37-10 in the third quarter. It looked like a late hit. It looked like a cheap shot out of frustration. McNabb was already in the end zone. He'd been hit cleanly by CB Richard Marshall as he spun into the end zone, but then while #5 was on the ground, Carolina DT Damione Lewis drilled McNabb into the turf. Broken left rib...but no penalty or fine for the late hit. The NFL announced later they had reviewed the play and declared it was not an illegal hit. Funny...I guess your name has to be "Brady" or "Manning" to get that call made correctly. The result of McNabb's injury: no time to celebrate before next week's home opener with the New Orleans Saints. The Saints are a big physical team this season with a great QB and lots of pressure defense talent. You can't throw McNabb out there with a broken rib...or can you? That will be the debate all this week in Philly. "Get him a flak jacket...", "Re-sign A.J. Feeley to fill in for him" (QB Feeley was somewhat frivolously released last week as the Eagles decided to gamble by keeping only 2 QB's on the roster---McNabb and Kevin Kolb----prior to the reinstatement of Mike Vick in Game 3)..."Kevin Kolb is not as bad as people think, let him play against the Saints...." A broken rib, although not life-threatening, is extremely painful, even if it's on your left side and you throw from the right. My opinion: McNabb should sit it out and recuperate until Week 4. That will be a bye week, too, giving him extra time to heal. And re-sign A.J. Feeley to run the offense against the Saints next Sunday. I along with many other fans like Kevin Kolb a lot but don't feel he's quite ready to be trusted under pressure. Feeley, on the other hand, is a veteran relief pitcher who knows well when to hold and when to fold. I think it's the logical move to bring Feeley back---if he will still have us! And, oh yeah, NFL, that was a late hit, and an illegal hit, in the end zone on McNabb. Shame on you for not having the guts to make the right call. Unfortunately, the damage is done anyway.