Vick dominates as Eagles crush Jaguars

At least for this week, Andy Reid looks like a genius. His call of making Michael Vick the starting quarterback of the Eagles payed off in Week 3 as the Birds crushed the Jaguars, 28-3, in their most impressive performance of the season.

Vick came up huge against the terrible Jaguars secondary, completing 17 of 31 passes for 291 yards and 3 touchdowns and also added 30 yards on the ground and a rushing touchdown. While Vick wasn't incredibly accurate, completing 55% of his passes, he didn't throw any interceptions for the third week in a row. Vick also repeatedly came up with big plays when he needed to and averaged 9.4 yards per pass attempt.

While we can't say how well Kevin Kolb would have done against the porous Jacksonville secondary, I don't think we could have asked for anything more than what Vick did. He made plays with his feet, led the team on a successful 2 minute drive at the end of the first half, made every trip in the red zone count and showed off his strong arm on a few deep throws. Sure, he got lucky at times (like his floating lob pass to DeSean Jackson), but Vick did everything he could to prove he deserves to be the Eagles starting quarterback.

The Eagles defense also had their best effort of the season as they contained Maurice Jones-Drew and forced David Garrard to try to beat them. Garrard couldn't handle the pressure the Eagles put on him, however, and was sacked 6 times and threw an interception while completing only 13 of 30 passes for 105 yards. The entire defensive line for the Eagles deserves credit for their performance today, from Darryl Tapp proving he should be given more playing time to Trent Cole picking up a pair of sacks to Juqua Parker notching up his 4th sack of the season.

With the win, the Eagles are now in first place and are the only team in the NFC East above .500. For all the doom and gloom people predicted for the Eagles after what happened in Week 1, the Birds are sitting atop an NFC East that doesn't look nearly as strong as everyone thought it would be. As if the game next week needs any more hype, the Eagles can make a strong statement to the rest of the division if they can beat Donovan McNabb and the Redskins next week. If the Eagles defense can repeat their performance from this week, expect it to be a long, long day for McNabb. Of course, if Michael Vick continues to play like this, it won't matter what the defense does.
(Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images)