Manning was pressured and lofted a pass that might as well have been thrown to Samuel, the Pro Bowl corner's second pick of the day, and the answer to why the Eagles overlook Samuel's hit-and-miss approach to tackling.
Samuel ran around with the ball, on parade, eventually backtracking, braids flowing, before finally coming to rest. One Vick kneeldown later, game over, Eagles 26, Colts 24.
"I told him to go to the corner and let me go to safety and read Peyton a little bit. So I read [Manning]'s eyes, and when I caught the pick, I was going to try to score, but then I saw 85 [Pierre Garcon] coming up fast on my tail, so I said, 'Let me play around with it a little bit,' " Samuel said after the Eagles hit the midway point at 5-3, overcoming an unfortunate festival of yellow flags to nail down their most impressive victory of the season. "We fought like champions today."
There were questions afterward about a "defining win" or "signature win," the kind of thing that usually only becomes clear weeks later, in retrospect. But this was big for Vick, who returned to the big-play level he had established before suffering his rib-cartilage injury Oct. 3. It was big for DeSean Jackson, who returned from his Oct. 17 concussion with seven catches for 109 yards and a touchdown, and three rushes for 20 yards, including a pair of late-game end-arounds that helped keep Manning on the sideline a little longer. It was big for Eagles coach Andy Reid, now 12-0 in the game following the bye. It was even big for David Akers, who has hit nine successive field goals since that little slump against Atlanta.
But the victory was biggest for defensive coordinator Sean McDermott and his players, who have self-destructed in the fourth quarter three times this season, most memorably 2 weeks earlier at Tennessee, in the 37-19 loss that sent the Birds reeling into the bye.
