Eagles safety Chris Maragos scores on a blocked punt on the game’s first possession. Photo by Andy Lewis/ contrastphotography.com

LeSean McCoy had a respectable 81 yards rushing on the day, Nick Foles looked like it stopped hurting throwing the ball and tossed two touchdown passes, Riley Cooper finally caught his first touchdown pass of the season, Connor Barwin had a Pro bowl stats line with two sacks, two tackles for loss, a batted pass, and two quarterback hurries plus special teams and the defense each scored again, and the Eagles (4-1) held on for a 34-28 win over the St. Louis Rams (1-3).

With the win, the Eagles held on to a tie with the Dallas Cowboys (4-1 after beating Texas in OT) for the lead in the NFC East and set up a marquee match-up on national network TV next Sunday night with the New York Football Giants, who are 3-2 after beating the Atlanta Falcons.

The Eagles scored on the first possession of the game, while playing defense. The second consecutive week the Eagles blocked a punt and ran it in for a touchdown,

On a fourth and 10 from the their own 20 the Rams attempted a punt by Johnny Hekker only have it blocked by James Casey. Chris Maragos scooped up the ball at the 10-yard line and ran it in virtually untouched.

First time in Eagles history that they have blocked a punt and run it in for a touchdown. It is the first time any team in the NFL has scored on blocked punts on consecutive weeks since Baltimore Ravens performed the feat since 2002.

After the Rams second drive stalled, the Eagles offense got the ball and drove to the Rams eight-yard line where their drive stalled but Cody Parkey hit 26 yard field goal to make it 10-0.

The Eagles had another drive fizzle at the at the Rams nine, but Parkey his on a 27-yarder to make it 13-0.

In the second quarter, each team took turns turning the ball over. The Rams got on the board after a Foles interception, drove 84 yards on 11 plays and finished the drive with an eight-yard pass from Austin Davis to Brian Quick to make the score 13-7.

The Eagles started to pull away when they went on an 11-play 80 yard drive that ended with a

If this was golf Cedric Thornton would have to by the house a round after performance he turned in.

In the third quarter, the veteran defensive lineman fell on a fumble in the end zone to give the Eagles a 27-7 lead.

Later in the quarter Thornton and the ball met again. This time Thornton scooped up Zac Stacy fumble at the Eagles 31-yard and rolled 40 yards before being taken down by tight end Lance Kendricks at the St. Louis 24.

Two plays later, the Eagles scored on a 24-yard touchdown pass from Foles to Jeremy Maclin putting the Birds up 34-7.

It was a lead the Eagles almost blew.

Head coach Chip Kelly was asked if he could have imagined being up by that score and having to hang on.

“No,” Kelly said. “I think obviously offensively, we have to do a better job of finishing people off, when we are up 34-7, tried to talk to the guys on the sideline about not being complacent with that score, and let’s finish this thing off. And obviously there were a couple key plays that we should have made. The fumble hurt us obviously. We got a drive going, a first down, and continued to stay on the field. I thought before those last couple of drives I thought our defense had done a really good job, created a lot of pressure obviously, I think they had four or five sacks caused a couple fumbles on the quarterback really hit him, had a couple key change of yardage, the one [Cedric Thornton] picked up and ran and obviously we scored on defense again. But we have got to do a better job offensively.”