Demonstrating the poise of a veteran, third-year quarterback, Jason Campbell converted several big plays and got plenty of help from Clinton Portis, Chris Cooley and a big-play defense in Washington's 20-12 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles.
The surprising Redskins, coming off a 5-11 season, are 2-0 and tied with Dallas atop the National Football Conference East, which Philadelphia was expected to dominate.
But the Eagles are 0-2 and their offense, other than the dynamic Brian Westbrook, has been far too spotty.
PHOTO: AFP
STYMIED
Portis and Cooley scored touchdowns and Shaun Suisham made two field goals. Washington's defense stymied every Eagle except Westbrook, who rushed for 96 yards and caught eight passes for another 66 yards.
Westbrook's work wasn't enough to get the Eagles into the end zone, however, as an array of blitzes and some hard hitting by the Redskins' secondary kept Donovan McNabb off-balance much of the night.
McNabb has lost six of his last seven starts and is 9-12 since the Eagles lost the Super Bowl to New England in January 2005.
Campbell, in his ninth pro start, kept the Redskins on the move when it counted with sharp passes and timely third-down conversions.
After Suisham's third field goal, a 37-yarder, put Washington on top 13-6, David Akers matched it with a 26-yarder later in the third quarter.
Then Washington's mastery on third down -- it went 8-for-15 -- helped it to the winning score, a 6-yard run by Portis early in the fourth period.
Campbell found Cooley for 9 yards on third-and-8 and hit Todd Yoder, Cooley's backup, for 18 on third-and-10.
Philadephia lost safety Brian Dawkins, its defensive leader, with a neck injury on the play that moved the ball to the Philadelphia 6. Then Portis swept left for the decisive points.
Portis wound up with 69 yards rushing and Campbell added 39 to go with his 209 passing, but it was his maturity in tight situations that stood out.
HARD-HITTING
Washington's hard-hitting defense was led by safeties Sean Taylor and rookie LaRon Landry, as well as a pass rush that got to McNabb three times and pressured him all game long.
The biggest cheer of the night by the 67,726 fans might have been in the first quarter, which ended 3-0 for the Redskins. It came when re-signed Reno Mahe caught a punt.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier