During the third quarter on Sunday, Philadelphia safety Quintin Mikell detected a way to awaken a somnolent game against San Diego.
He had spotted a weakness in the Chargers' blocking scheme on field goals. The line seemed to pay too much attention to the Eagles' interior rush, leaving a gap between the tight end and the wingback.
"I think I can get it on the right side," Mikell told John Harbaugh, coach of Philadelphia's much-criticized special teams.
This kind of chatter occurs all the time during games. Coaches often learn to ignore such bravado. But Mikell was not reckless with his confidence.
"You can trust him," Harbaugh said.
So with 2 minutes 37 seconds remaining and Philadelphia trailing Harbaugh sent Mikell crashing off the right edge of the Eagles' rush. Nate Kaeding had been perfect on 11 field-goal attempts for San Diego before this 40-yard kick, but Mikell raced in untouched and swatted it away.
The ball bounced more like an Australian Rules football than an American football, straight into the arms of Philadelphia cornerback Matt Ware, who returned it 65 yards for a touchdown.
Ware reached the end zone with 2:25 left, giving the Eagles a 20-17 victory that restored the reputation of Philadelphia's foundering special teams, bailed out a moribund Eagles offense and ratified the effort of a newly invigorated defense.
Never before had Philadelphia returned a blocked field-goal attempt for a touchdown.
In this unlikely manner, Philadelphia improved to 4-2 and won for the seventh consecutive time after a bye week under coach Andy Reid. This is when the Eagles have been at their best in recent seasons, revived and refreshed after a week off and front-running down the stretch in the National Football Conference.
It is impossible to know whether that will happen again. Philadelphia's ambitious offense has become unbalanced and uncertain, scoring only one touchdown in the past two games. The running game, which delivered 24 yards on 14 carries Sunday, has grown unreliable, ignored, invisible.
Quarterback Donovan McNabb is playing with a sports hernia and throwing erratically. On its lone touchdown drive Sunday, which culminated with a 4-yard pass to Terrell Owens and a 7-0 lead in the second quarter, Philadelphia grew so disorganized with play selection that it used all three timeouts allotted for the half.
That left the Eagles unable to stop the clock and inexcusably throwing the ball in the middle of the field instead of to the sideline or the end zone as the second quarter expired at the San Diego 4-yard line.
"I blew it," Reid said.
Yet Philadelphia won again, no matter how inelegantly, and remains the team to beat in the NFC East, which it has won four consecutive seasons.
"We'll take 'em any way we can get 'em," middle linebacker Jeremiah Trotter said.
Trotter made nine tackles Sunday as Philadelphia restricted the outside rushing of San Diego's LaDainian Tomlinson. The Eagles forced Tomlinson, perhaps the NFL's top running back, toward the middle, where he managed a career-low 7 yards on 17 carries. He failed to score a rushing touchdown for the first time in 19 games.
"He's got great vision," said Jim Johnson, Philadelphia's defensive coordinator. "If he can get outside, he can take it all the way. That's what we were worried about."
After playing porously and leaving the Eagles trailing by 17-0 in the previous two games, Philadelphia's defense regained its familiar unassailability. San Diego (3-3) had first-and-goal on the Philadelphia 1-yard line early in the fourth quarter but managed only a field goal and a tenuous 17-10 lead after a holding penalty and a sack.
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