when you send an email to the entire company by mistake. I guess it could have been worse....

So heliocentric has a journal entry right now that he's going to delete soon so that we can all learn what happens to comments when a journal entry is deleted. It's a shame, though, since his requests for comments have yielded some pretty good material.

It'll all be gone soon, though. Then we will be sad.

According to this CNN article, Haitian and Cuban groups are joining in expressing outrage at GTA:VC. Quite ironic, don't you think? The Haitians and Cubans are mortal enemies in GTA:VC, but Rockstar has managed to bring them together in real life.

This journal entry is devoted to sports cliches that are wrong. Not just dumb, but wrong. Examples:

Dumb cliche: It's going to come down to which team wants it more.

Why it's dumb: It's pretty dumb to suggest that 1) one team wants to win the game less than the other (what, they're just out there to have fun?) and 2) how much a team "wants to win" is more important than other things, such as "how well it plays".

Wrong cliche: You have to play a full 60 minutes to win in this league.

Why it's wrong: Ok, this one's always said by the losing team when they dominate a game and then drop it at the end when the other team makes a fierce comeback. Frankly, it would be more correct to look at things from the winner's point of view, and say, "We only played a few good minutes today, but it was enough to win."

Anyone got any other good "wrong" cliches?

Yes, Tuesday Morning Quarterback has returned this week, finding a temporary home at Football Outsiders. I'm linking to the site itself and not the article because 1) it's easy to get to the article on the front page and 2) there's a lot of excellent material besides TMQ that you should read on their site.

Oh, man. The Eagles had about as much business winning this one as they did against the New York Giants a few weeks ago, and they won it in conditions about as absurd. Donovan McNabb finally gets his offense's act together, scoring 2 TDs in the 4th quarter, including a short strike to Todd Pinkston with :27 left to put the Eagles up to stay, 17-13.

Ahman Green had about 182 yards rushing against the Eagles, and if Favre had been halfway-decent tonight, the Packers roll. But he wasn't, and the Birds stole another one.

The running game was mediocre, as lots of Andy Reid's running plays drawn out towards the sidelines were smothered by the Packers. Still, Reid proved his coaching prowess on the final drive, as his play calls enabled the Eagles to move down the field quickly. Mad props to the 2 called runs to Duce Staley on the last drive, both of which went for 10 yards.

Oh, man, 6-3 and winners of 6 of their last 7. Man, this team's been quite the roller coaster ride this season.

Didn't see it, since the Skins were playing at the same time.

McNabb broke 300 yards passing. That like, never happens. Ok, a couple of times he's done it, but it's rare. 430 yards total offense. Too bad it was against the Falcons, which has a defense as effective as a paper clip.

It was a positive sign that the running game was able to pick up a first down when the Eagles were trying to kill the clock late, leaving the Falcons with almost no time left when they did get it back and a long way to go to tie.

Man, after a 0-2 start, they're 5-3. Of course, they had no business winning the Giants game, they almost blew the Redskins game, and the Jets and Falcons games were both struggles. But hey, there's hope for them yet.

So I watched the whole game this week (except for the first five minutes as we here in the DC area were waiting for the thrilling conclusion of the Ravens-Broncos game.) First things first, I've gotta say (and this'll be a fact that will definitely be lost upon all the people writing about the game) that the Eagles have a damn fine running game, and it's not just Brian Westbrook. Corell Buckhalter had 100 yards on 15 carries and 2 TD, an excellent game. Of course, at the same time, the Eagles' D did a poor job of stopping the run today. And my God, did any of their 3rd down blitzes work? I seem to recall one where Pennington's pass hit his receiver in the back because he had to throw it quickly, but besides that, the Jets (both QBs) were making the Eagles pay for blitzing on 3rd down, making first downs many times.

McNabb had an excellent first half, but he went back to his old ways in the second half (though it wound up being good enough.) By this, I mean that he was hitting his receivers in stride in the first half, but hitting them as they were going down to the ground because his passes were too low in the second half. Again, he was under 200 yards, but we'll chalk that one up this week to the excellent running game carrying a lot of the load. In fairness, I'm being a little harsh on McNabb, as he did have a fine game (17-23, 141 yds, 1 TD, 1 INT), and this was much better than recent weeks.

Hopefully, Jim Johnson will realize that blitzing all the time isn't the best way to go (especially since we've still got some injuries in the secondary.) Still, who'd've thought that a team that's looked simply awful for most of the season would be 4-3 by now? Maybe there is a little magic left in this team....

And no, I don't mean People for the Eating of Tasty Animals.

Just go here and laugh.

I didn't do the Eagles last week because I didn't see it at all.

Of course, I only caught the last ~1:50 or so of this week's game (due to a rare opportunity to see some college friends taking precedence over watching.) As I understand it, though, that was really the best time for an Eagles fan to start watching. I saw them stop the Giants on 3rd down, and then saw Feagles' punt get returned by Brian Westbrook 85 yards (I think he got it on the 15, not the 16) for a TD. The funny thing is that in the Philly and New York papers I've looked in today, they all seem to consider the game over at that point. They completely overlook the fact that Akers's ensuing kickoff went to the 20, and after one play the Giants were in Eagles territory. Still, give the D credit for coming up with yet another stop.

McNabb, 9-for-23, 64 yards, 1 INT. Sweet Jesus, Rush Limbaugh has saved his season up to this point (in terms of not having been benched), but Andy Reid has to do SOMETHING.

Sadly, ESPN has seen fit to drop Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback column from its Page 2 due to some comments he made about Jews in Hollywood (or something like that.) Now, I haven't read them, so I can't comment on their severity, but I have read that they weren't so bad (though, again, take this assessment with a grain of salt, since I'm reading this assessment from people on the right.) Still, he apologized, but that's not good enough, apparently. It's a damn shame, if you ask me. His TMQ column was the best thing on Page 2 (tied for first with Tim Keown's The List column.) It was always the longest and deepest column of the week by far, and covered lots of topics besides football (though always lots and lots of football.)

:(

Wow, what a postseason. That's all I can say. Well, that and, like, yeah, Boston was cruising.

gg

My God, the man can play on my team anytime, anywhere.

Meanwhile, the Phillies continue to have won exactly one World Series in 120 years of existence, and remain the losingest team in all of sports (any level, any sport, any nation.) No team anywhere has lost more games than the Phillies.

Phillies fans are the real sufferers.

So the Eagles had the chance to even their record at 2-2 after their awful 0-2 start, and they just barely took advantage of it. Actually, they played decently, but only decently. The MVP of the Eagles' D was the Redskins receivers, who dropped a lot of balls. Ramsey didn't come alive until it was almost too late. But damn, did we have to let it come down to a 2-point conversion at the end, guys? When Westbrook went 19 yards to make it 27-16 with 3:10 left, I thought that 1) the game was over and 2) that was the drive that would definitively turn the Eagles' season around (i.e. it was a chance to put the game away, and the Eagles struggled on the drive, but after McNabb's wacky spin run for a first down and Westbrook's long TD run, they'd gotten their act together.) And then they almost blew it.

But they didn't.

And eventually, their D will get healthy. Mad props to Darwin Walker on turning the game around in the 3rd quarter. Let's review his sequence:

First play: busts into the backfield, tackles ballcarrier for 2-yard loss, gets called for 15-yard face mask penalty (and deservedly so.)

Second play: busts into the backfield and sacks Ramsey for a loss of 4.

Third play: busts into the backfield, gets to Ramsey as he throws, causes the pass to float, and N.D. Kalu returns the INT for a TD.

It was amazing to watch. Walker was up out of his stance a split-second before the other 21 guys on the field. I mean, it was obvious on TV. He turned the game around almost by himself. He must have gotten Ramsey's cadence down pat.

Next week: the Birds go to Dallas to take on the improved Cowboys. I think we'll win.