Nick Foles led the Eagles on a game-winning drive, as Cody Parkey kicked a 36-yard field goal as time expired to give Philadelphia a 30-27 victory against the Indianapolis Colts Monday night.The win moves the Eagles to 2-0, while the Colts fall to 0-2. Here's what we learned Monday night:
1) Andrew Luck is human. Not only did he finally lose two games in a row, but Luck's own costly interception set up the Eagles' game-tying drive late in the fourth.
He certainly wasn't at his best Monday night (he was 20-of-34 for 172 yards, though he did have three touchdowns), but Luck did put the Colts in a position to win when Indianapolis went up 27-20. Then, as Indianapolis was driving to go up by two scores and put the game away, Luck was intercepted and the Eagles took it to a tired Colts defense.
2) The Eagles aren't so good at first halves. For the second week in a row, Philadelphia had plenty of offensive trouble scoring in the first half. The Eagles got deep into the Colts' territory plenty of times, but they came up with only six points for a 17-6 halftime deficit.
But who cares about the first half when you can play so well in the second? Once again, the Eagles looked like a completely different team in the second half, tying the game at 20 with 2:44 left in the third quarter with a great run by Darren Sproles.
Eagles speed up in second half, fly past Colts
Sproles enabled the Eagles to rally from a 14-point deficit midway through the third quarter for a 30-27 win over the Indianapolis Colts on Monday when Cody Parkey hit a 36-yard field goal as time expired.But really, the Eagles wouldn't have had a chance if not for Sproles. Twice, he took short passes and turned them into long gains – the first going for 57 yards late in the first quarter, the second for 51 yards in the fourth quarter that set up the game-tying touchdown.
He also had a 19-yard touchdown run when he seemingly disappeared into a batch of Colts defenders only to keep his balance and score.
"The only thing that was going through my head was stay up and score," Sproles said with a laugh.Sproles helped ensure the game-winning field goal when he took another screen pass from Nick Foles for 17 yards, getting down to the Colts' 19. The Eagles are 2-0 while the Colts fell to 0-2.
In all, Sproles had 152 yards receiving and 26 yards rushing.
"He's really giving us a spark," fellow running back LeSean McCoy said. "Without Sproles, we would be in some trouble. We really would."The Eagles weren't, mainly because of a defense that stiffened in the second half after the Colts ran for 101 yards in the first half. The Eagles also forced two turnovers that enabled them to come back. The first was when Fletcher Cox stripped running back Trent Richardson and DeMeco Ryans recovered at Indianapolis' 26.
The second came with 5:08 left in the fourth quarter, when Malcolm Jenkins intercepted Andrew Luck on a 3rd-and-9 pass from the Eagles' 22. The Colts seemed to be on the verge of putting the game away, leading by 27-20 and in range for at least a field goal.
"When you talk about team defense, sometimes we give up plays," Jenkins said. "But this is a good offense that we played, so to come up with that [interception] at that point in time in the game was huge for us. Obviously, it sparked us."
He enabled the Eagles to overcome a first half in which they nearly self-destructed with dropped passes, missed throws by Foles, and a porous defense that allowed the Colts to control the ball and the clock by running the ball at will.
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