Eagles beat Atlanta JV - time to believe?

Wow. That Falcon roster sure is thin. The Eagles annihilated the Atlanta back-ups, 34-7. The Falcons were without four of their top offensive players - QB Matt Ryan, RB Michael Turner, WR Michael Jenkins and OG Harvey Dahl - and they just didn't have enough quality players to match up today.

And that points up an important point about the Eagles. Even when the Birds have injuries, they keep on coming. The next guy steps up and a lot of times he isn't great, but most of the time he gets the job done. The Eagles have been slapped with a lot of injuries this year, but they've overcome just about all of them. Sean McDermott has duct-taped together the defense so well that they almost pitched a shutout today.

I know Chris Redman stinks, but as Leonard Weaver just told me in a post-game interview, this is the NFL. If you let your guard down, teams will rise up and beat you. Hey - the Oakland Raiders beat the Steelers today. And the Birds - except for their Oakland game - have done a good job of taking care of business. Today, they never gave Atlanta a chance. They grabbed the lead early and romped. The Falcons (and their fans) threw in the towel after the Birds' end of the first half goal line stand.

And now, they're building confidence. You can say they still haven't beaten a good team, but these Eagles don't believe that. Look - I know the Falcons are horrendous and on the verge of going in the tank, but the Eagles don't care. I know the Eagles haven't been winning pretty, but the players don't care.

They are starting to believe in themselves. And in the NFL, that's big.