“…it’s like you are in the backyard like a kid. You just have to make plays and just try to give them a chance. You cannot really zip balls, you just have to lob them up there and just say “hey one of you go up there are get it and make a play.’ And that was one of those plays.” – Eagles QB Nick Foles on how some of the passing plays were executed in the snow. Photo by Jesse Simmers/ contrastphotography.com

There were several stadiums in the Northeast affected Sunday by snow including Baltimore, Pittsburgh, New England, East Rutherford and Washington, DC, but no NFL game was as affected as the Eagles-Detroit Lions game played in a full blown blizzard at Lincoln Financial Field.

The Eagles stormed back from a 14-0 deficit in the third quarter to score 28 points in the fourth quarter to defeat the Lions 34-20 and improve their record to 8-5 and first place in the NFC East with three games left in the regular season.

“I’ve actually played all of my football in Pennsylvania,” said LeSean McCoy, who rushed for a team record 217 yards on 29 carries and two touchdowns. “And this is the worst game that I’ve ever played in weather-wise. It’s my best game too.”

At about 11:00 A.M. It was just a cloudy sky hanging over the Linc…maybe a few flakes of snow were coming down…but 15 minutes later the sky opened up and more snow than anyone on site could have imagined was dumped on the field making conditions to play football border on ridiculous.

“Weather-wise those were the craziest conditions I have ever played a football game in,” said center Jason Kelce, who blocked well for an Eagles offense that produced 478 yards of total offense and five TDs. “I’ve played in a couple snow games, but its never been that hard to grab the ground or really to just see five yards in front of you in the first half. It was tough.”

When the game started, the giant video screens were just big lights that were impossible to see what was showing from one end of the stadium to the other.

Players trying to catch passes would literally disappear from sight when they hit the ground the snow was so deep.

It was just a matter of how fast each team would learn how to adjust and make plays in the snow.

The Lions adjusted first and take advantage of Nick Foles first interception in the second quarter when Chris Houston picked off Foles at midfield and returned it 30 yards to the Eagles 20-yard line. Five plays later Joique Bell – who was in for Reggie Bush, who was injured in warmups – scored from two yards out and with a two-point conversion Detroit went up 8-0.

The Lions made 14-0 in the third when Jeremy Ross returned a Donnie Jones punt 58 yards for a score. The two-point conversion failed.

After that the Birds went on a tear starting with Foles who hit DeSean Jackson with a 19-yard TD in the back of a snow bank that was the end zone. Then McCoy scored on runs of 40 and 57 yards followed by a one-yard sneak by Foles and a 38-yard plow to pay dirt by Chris Polk who finished with 50 yards on four carries.

Detroit’s other score was on another kick return by Ross that gave the Lions a brief 20-14 lead early in the fourth. But it was all Eagles after that.

Foles, who was 11 of 22 for 179 yards and his 20th TD pass of the season, was asked what it was like to throw the football in this weather.

“It was definitely different but I still feel like I mis-executed in the first half and I have to execute on certain plays,” the second-year signal caller said. “The other team was playing in the same environment so I know [QB] Matthew [Stafford] was playing with the same environment and he was throwing the ball. I knew it was one of those things where I would adjust to it and we would adjust as a team because the routes changed up a little bit because of the speed of them. When I was making throws I couldn’t really zip them, because if you zip them in that weather it is hard to see the ball and with the gloves or the hands it would slip right through, so it was it just adjusting to how I wanted to throw the ball. As the course of the game went on I got more and more comfortable with it and we all adjusted and made some big plays.”

The visibility and conditions were so poor, Foles admitted at times he simply had to chuck the rock where he saw Eagles uniforms and hope for the best. One pass Foles was asked whether he meant to throw the ball to WR DeSean Jackson or WR Riley Cooper.

“When I was looking through the area I saw DeSean back there and I saw Riley coming across and I knew I just needed to throw it in their area,” Foles said. “It was one of those things where you saw both of them and you just have to make a play, you have to give both of them an opportunity and they both adjusted well. DeSean came back to the ball, Riley coming across and that kind of game it’s like you are in the backyard like a kid. You just have to make plays and just try to give them a chance. You cannot really zip balls, you just have to lob them up there and just say “hey one of you go up there are get it and make a play.” And that was one of those plays.”

The Eagles incredibly did not allow a sack and recorded just one fumble, that was recovered. The Lions fumbled seven times, losing three of them.

Eagles pass rusher/linebacker Connor Barwin said he expected some turnovers but wanted to make sure the majority were by the Lions.

“We knew there were going to be some,” said Barwin who led the team with six tackles including two for loss, a forced fumble and fumble recovery. “We had to force those opportunities. We knew [the game] was going to be about turnovers and field position. We kept punching for the ball and we ended up getting them.”

Detroit head coach Jim Schwartz was asked whether they had problems in the exchange and getting the ball to QB Matthew Stafford

“It was slippery,” said Schwartz “The last one had nothing to do with the exchange. The last one we were motioning in and snapped the ball too quick. Playing on the road, we have to be able to handle stuff like that. We didn’t do a good enough job with it.”

The Lions finished with just 228 total yards of offense. Matthew Stafford was 10 of 25 for 148 yards and a QB rating of 60.1.

Stafford said losing this game was a disappointment especially after coming off the win on Thanksgiving.

“Yeah, it’s never fun to lose a game,” Stafford said. “That is obvious. We’ve got to learn from this one. We’re going to have a lot of time to sit there and think about it because we play late next week. So we will learn from it and move forward and be ready to go for the next one.”

Email Al Thompson at the.magazine2@footballstories.com