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This one had been billed the Destiny Bowl, as if some mystical force would guide the Green Bay Packers to the Super Bowl. It wasn't a football game, it was a fable.
Fable, shmable, the Philadelphia Eagles said.
"We don't need fate. We have '5' " Eagles receiver Freddie Mitchell said after his team beat the Packers 20-17 in overtime.
"5" is Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb. He's now the Carolina Panthers'
No. 1 problem when they travel to Lincoln Financial Field for Sunday's NFC Championship
Game.
McNabb willed the Eagles to this victory in a manner that out-Favred Packers
legend-in-waiting Brett Favre. Tickets
McNabb threw for two touchdowns, ran for 107 yards (a playoff record for a quarterback),
and made perhaps the greatest play of this NFL season by converting a fourth-and-26
on the drive that sent the game into overtime.
McNabb hit Mitchell over the middle, intentionally underthrowing it slightly
to keep Packers defensive back Bhawoh Jue from knocking it down in deep coverage.
This wasn't quite on the scale of the famous Joe Montana-to-Dwight Clark touchdown
pass, but it was up there on the poise-under-pressure scale.
"If he'd put it up ahead of me, I'd have been crushed. So he put it back-shoulder,"
Mitchell said. "I was just looking for the first down marker. I knew I
was going to catch it, knew I'd get hit. I was just trying to lean forward"
to gain the first down.
That he did, leading to a 37-yard field goal with five seconds left to send
the game into overtime.
That's when the Packers and Favre flamed out. Green Bay forced the Eagles to
punt on their first possession in overtime, but a holding call on that change
of possession pushed the Packers back to their own 23.
Favre faded back to throw and the Eagles blitzed, forcing him into a bizarre
overthrow. Two defensive backs were closer to that pass than Favre's intended
receiver, Javon Walker. Philadelphia safety Brian Dawkins easily fielded the
ball, returning it to the Green Bay 34.
Favre, under huge stress since the death of his father last month, ducked the
media afterward. Green Bay coach Mike Sherman said his quarterback was looking
to beat a blitz in typically bold fashion. Except this time, the receiver had
no shot at sprinting to the throw.
The interception set up David Akers' 31-yard field goal to send the Eagles to
a third NFC Championship Game since McNabb came aboard.
"Down to that last play, we never gave up, never stopped believing,"
Mitchell said. "It just comes down to `5,' man."