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Packers take advantage of miscues to beat Eagles

Sep 9, 2007 - 10:43 PM GREEN BAY, Wisconsin (Ticker) -- The Green Bay Packers' special teams were special. The Philadelphia Eagles' special teams were horrific.

After J.R. Reed muffed a punt with under a minute remaining, rookie Mason Crosby kicked a 43-yard field goal, giving the Packers a 16-13 victory over the Eagles on Sunday.

Reed had replaced Greg Lewis, who muffed a punt in the first quarter that was recovered by Green Bay's Tracy White for a touchdown.

The miscue by Reed came after he dove and attempted to field a punt. Cornerback Jarrett Bush recovered at the Philadelphia 31 with 59 seconds left.

"No excuses," said Reed, who had only been taking punts in practice in the last week. "I needed to make the play."

After two runs by rookie Brandon Jackson, Crosby came on to drill his third field goal of the game with two seconds remaining. He had kicked field goals of 53 and 37 yards earlier in the contest.

"It's kind of like a dream come true," Crosby said. "It's one of those things you think about and I visualized this the whole week just having a good game and making kicks."

"No matter what he does in the future, he will remember that one," Packers quarterback Brett Favre said.

Thanks to the ineptness of the Eagles' special teams, the Packers (1-0) were able to win despite not scoring an offensive touchdown.

"We surely can't have the turnovers we had on special teams, dropped balls we had on offense, the penalties we had on offense, missing tackles on defense, penalties on defense ... you can't have those and compete at this level," Eagles coach Andy Reid said.

The victory also was 148th in the career of the legendary Favre, tying him with Hall of Famer John Elway for the most all-time.

"I think ultimately you're judged by wins and losses, but I think that is unfair to the rest of my team. How can the quarterback who is one 53 (players) be labeled with wins and losses and not the center or safety or whatever. But that's the way it is and I'm glad there's a lot more wins that there is losses." Favre was unspectacular, completing 23-of-42 passes for 206 yards and an interception.

"I haven't played the Eagles where it was not tough," Favre said. "That's an ugly win, but I've had plenty of games where we played a lot better and lost. ... I can't say enough about our defense and special teams, which was kind of the case in the preseason. We put them in I don't know how many situations and they responded every time."

A future Hall of Famer himself, Favre did make an acrobatic underhand toss to rookie DeShawn Wynn on a 3rd-and-10 play in the third quarter. The play went for 18 yards and set up Crosby's 37-yard field goal that tied the game at 13-13.

"That shows you his desire. His will to win after sixteen or seventeen years," Eagles linebacker Takeo Spikes said.

In addition to their stellar play on special teams, the Packers also came up big defensively, pressuring Donovan McNabb and containing speedy running back Brian Westbrook.

Green Bay also came up with a big defensive stand after Favre had lost a fumble at his 38 with under five minutes remaining.

"I was really concerned about the defense at halftime because I clearly felt our offense kept them on the field too long," Packers coach Mike McCarthy said. "They were on the field almost 19 minutes (of the first half) but they just kept mustering up and containing (Brian) Westbrook for the most part, big third downs over and over again. I thought they played excellent today."

Returning after missing the last six regular-season games in 2006 with a torn ACL, McNabb was erratic the entire afternoon. He completed 15-of-33 passes for 184 yards with a touchdown and interception.

"I had full command of everything that was going on out there," McNabb said. "You need to take care of the little things in game situations and we all didn't do that today." The Packers got off to a big start, using a pair of turnovers to grab a 10-0 lead less than six minutes into the contest.

Lewis, handling punt return duties for the first time in his career, muffed his first attempt. After a mad scramble, White recovered in the end zone.

On the Eagles' ensuing possession, McNabb was intercepted by linebacker Nick Barnett. That miscue set up Crosby's 53-yard field goal.

But the Eagles recovered from their slow start in the second quarter.

McNabb's 37-yard completion led to David Akers' 33-yard field goal 90 seconds into the second quarter, pulling the Eagles within 10-3.

The Eagles tied the game at 10-10 with 6:06 left in the first half on McNabb's six-yard touchdown pass to Jason Avant. The completion capped a nine-play, 67-yard march.

Avant also had costly roughing penalty on a punt earlier in the game.

Akers kicked a 47-yard field goal midway through the third quarter, giving the Eagles a 13-10 lead.

Westbrook rushed for 85 yards on 20 attempts. He also had six catches for 46 starts.

The Packers didn't have much of a running game as Jackson managed just 40 yards on 15 attempts.