Philadelphia Cruises Past Tampa Bay

NFL News - October 11th, 2009 - Written by John

In one of the two games on the NFL's early slate that lasted less than three in hours, Philadelphia manhandled sophomore quarterback Josh Johnson, picking him off three times in route to an easy 33-14 win on Sunday.

Asante Samuel had two picks, Sheldon Brown had one and the defense added a safety. It was more than enough to mark Donovan McNabb's return from a broken rib on a high note. After sitting out three weeks in a row, McNabb looked like he had never been gone, throwing for 264 yards and three scores, two of them to rookie Jeremy Maclin, and the Eagles increased their impressive record following a bye week under Andy Reid to 11-0. Maclin finished the day with a career-high 142 yards, while Tampa Bay's Kellen Winslow also hit the century mark with 102 yards.

Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are still toiling with quarterbacking issues. Head coach Raheem Morris elected to give Johnson another shot, saying he earned it in practice, after a shaky start last week in Washington. He was asked to throw 50 times after the Bucs fell way behind early, and only completed just over half of them. His two touchdown passes were to Winslow, who now has four on the season, and he hit eight different receivers overall. But his inexperience has begun to catch up with him, fumbling twice to go along with his three picks, and Morris will have a lot to consider with last year's first round pick, Josh Freeman, waiting in the wings.

Philadelphia got off to a rapid start on their first drive of the game, when McNabb connected for the first time with Maclin for a 51-yard score. Later in the half, the Pro Bowler increased the Eagles lead when he hit Leonard Weaver from 20 yards out to make it 14-0.

Tampa Bay responded with a touchdown strike of their own on the ensuing drive, when Winslow gobbled up a nine-yard pass from Johnson with two minutes left on the clock. But that's as close as they would get. With the kind of weapons the Philadelphia Eagles have, two minutes is plenty of time to squeeze in another score, and it was.

Three plays later, Maclin caught his second bomb of the day, this time from the 40-yard line and took it to the house to make it 21-7.

Brian Westbrook added a touchdown run of his own to blow the doors open.

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