With all eyes on Kevin Kolb as he made his first career start, the third-year quarterback helped the Eagles offense get off to an unbelievable start. The ending, however, was just as unbelievable.
On the fourth play of the Eagles' opening drive, Kolb hit DeSean Jackson in perfect stride over the middle for a 71-yard touchdown. It was Kolb's first career touchdown pass and it tied the game at 7-7.
"I was excited to get that because we needed the crowd on our side and they were on our side," Kolb said. "We needed that energy. We had to answer at that point because we knew (Drew) Brees and the Saints - we didn't want them to get the big lead on us like they ended up doing."
The problem? The Eagles were playing catch-up the entire game and were eventually outlasted by the Saints 48-22. Kolb finished 31-for-51 for 391 yards with two touchdowns and three interceptions.
"It's frustrating because there were some good things out there. I just hate that I kill myself and kill the team with those turnovers," Kolb said. "As a quarterback, you can't allow yourself to do that. It puts us in the hole. It put us in the hole at the top of the third (quarter) and we couldn't recover."
After engineering a two-minute drive at the end of the first half that ended with a David Akers field goal, the Eagles trailed just 17-13 at halftime. The Eagles were supposed to get the ball to start the second half, but Ellis Hobbs fumbled the kickoff return and the Saints capitalized with a touchdown to take a 24-13 lead. The Eagles finally got the ball and Kolb looked for DeSean Jackson on a quick pass along the sideline and it was picked off by linebacker Scott Shanle. The Saints scored again to take a 31-13 lead.
"We had been throwing that route in the two-minute drill leading up to the half and they trust me if that guy gets wide, to just check it back underneath," Kolb said. "And I really thought I could get it outside of him and we had been doing it previous to that point and he just took off to the flats."
All three of Kolb's picks came in the second half and one of them was returned 97 yards for a touchdown by Darren Sharper. Kolb was quick to realize that two of the interceptions - the final one came on a Hail Mary at the end of the game - were bad throws.
"I saw it clear as day they were bad throws," Kolb said. "I left them inside and you can't do that on out breaking routes, first page of the quarterback book. It just upsets me that I make those errors."
But Kolb did enough to earn another start if Donovan McNabb can't play next week against the Chiefs because of his rib injury, according to head coach Andy Reid. Kolb's teammates would agree that he deserves another chance.
"To be honest, I thought Kevin did a pretty good job in there,"" said fullback Leonard Weaver. ""I know some things happened with the ball and turnovers, OK those things happen, but I thought he did a great job. He looked like he was in command. He was consistent. He read the defenses well. I thought he did a pretty good job of managing the game."
-- Posted by Chris McPherson, 7:05 p.m., September 20
