Eagles' Abiamiri scores first-ever touchdown

CHARLOTTE - It is not often that a National Football League team sends reporters a statistical note like the one the Eagles sent out yesterday: "[Victor] Abiamiri's touchdown was the first of his life."

And the assist went to teammate Trent Cole.

On a day when the Eagles' defense sacked Carolina quarterbacks five times and forced seven turnovers, no play was more spectacular than this one at the start of the second quarter:

Cole, normally a defensive end, lined up as a kind of middle linebacker, rushed pretty much untouched up the middle, sacked quarterback Jake Delhomme, forcing a fumble and giving Abiamiri a chance to scoop up the bouncing ball and return it 2 yards for his maiden voyage into the end zone.

"My eyes lit up like, 'This is a freebie,' " Cole said, when he saw that the Panthers couldn't get him blocked on the play. "I'll take these all day."

And Delhomme's eyes?

"He just kind of froze like, 'This is over,' " Cole said.

There was production up and down the line yesterday, defensive coordinator Sean McDermott's first calling the plays. Darren Howard had two sacks, Akeem Jordan had another, and Mike Patterson and Omar Gaither split another. Cole had a great day, making him the best defensive end on the field.

"Trent's a beast," Abiamiri said. And Cole was clearly energized by the different positions that McDermott put him in.

"It's fun," he said, referring to his move to linebacker for what either was or wasn't a new riff on the Joker formation the Eagles used in the past under the late Jim Johnson; nobody would say.

"Sean brings his little wrinkles and it works out great," Cole said. "You'll be looking for it next week and we might have to do something different."

But back to Abiamiri, who has been playing football since he was a kid but never found his way to the end zone before yesterday.

"Trent made a nice play, the ball was right there in front of me, and I just had to scoop and score," Abiamiri said.

Really the first in your life?

"Yes it is," he said. "Maybe on Madden a couple of times, NCAA a couple of times. But in real life, this is when it counts."