One of the few bright spots for the Eagles in their 48-22 loss to the New Orleans Saints was the production of slot receiver Jason Avant.

Avant furthered the notion that he is the Eagles most reliable receiver with seven receptions for 81 yards, including a diving three-yard touchdown reception on fourth and goal in the third quarter that brought the Eagles within 14 points.

"We could have been a little cleaner out there today," Avant said. "I believe that we left some things out on the field. I thought Kevin (Kolb) did a nice job with the chances that he had. (There were) a couple of errors on all of our part which cost him some statistics, but everything else was alright."

Avant has been described as Donovan McNabb's third down security blanket, and it seemed like he worked just as well with Kolb.

"I believe that (Kolb) did a good job today," Avant said. "I believe that a lot of areas let him down, including myself.

"For his first start, we can't ask too much of him. Right now, we've just got to give him more help."

Avant is looking forward to McNabb's return, but he says the team should be able to win just as consistently with Kolb.

"We know that Donovan is the starter here, but Don wasn't there today and I believe Kevin gave us an opportunity to win," he said.

Avant said the game was a lot closer than the score indicates.

"We didn't play smart today and that's just the bottom line," he said. "The Saints played a good game.

"We had just too many penalties in critical situations. The game should have been a lot closer than it was. I believe that we dug ourselves a hole that we couldn't get out of."

-- Posted by Bo Wulf, 7:02 p.m., September 20