Eagles sloppy on both sides in loss to Steelers

BOX SCORE

PITTSBURGH -- Its almost impossible for a preseason game to be a disaster.

This one was.

The Eagles starting defense allowed touchdown drives of 80 and 96 yards on the only drives Ben Roethlisberger played, Michael Vick threw three ugly interceptions in just 12 pass attempts, and the Eagles were hammered by the Steelers Thursday night at Heinz Field.

The final score was 24-14, but the Eagles trailed 21-0 and were outgained 262-71 before Andy Reid removed his starters at halftime.

We all stunk tonight, Reid said. Its preseason and were working through things, learning as we go, but still, youve got to do better than we did tonight.

The Steelers gashed the Eagles in the air and on the ground, with middle linebacker Casey Matthews and safety Nate Allen in particular struggling on defense. Jim Washburn shuffled his defensive linemen down by down, but until Byron Leftwich entered the game, Roethlisberger was able to neutralize whatever pressure they generated with his usual wizardry after the play has broken down.

Even Leftwich had success against the Eagles, throwing a 29-yard touchdown pass to Jerricho Cotchery with 12 seconds left against a defensive unit that still had several starters on the field.

Only Asante Samuels field goal block prevented the Steelers from piling up 24 first-half points against the new, improved Eagles defense.

The Eagles, blanked for the first 56 minutes, scored all 14 of their points in the final four minutes on TD passes of 14 and seven yards to undrafted rookie Gerald Jones.

But the starters? It was grim.

There werent too many good things out there tonight, guard Todd Herremans said. In the NFL, you have to come to play every week.

On the one hand, yeah, its only preseason after a short off-season with a lot of new additions and a new coaching staff and a vanilla game plan. And the Eagles were missing three of their top defensive linemenAntonio Dixon, Mike Patterson and Trevor Laws. But this was such a complete dismantling its hard not to be concerned with just how easily the Steelers drove down the field on the Eagles.

The Steelers outgained the Eagles by 191 yards before halftime, converted nine of 12 third downs, rushed for 93 yards and didnt commit a turnover.

We have the talent to match up with everybody, but today we just didnt go out there mentally focused and we made mental errors, safety Kurt Coleman said. The bottom line is we didnt make plays when we needed to.

Roethlisberger shrugged off the Eagles all-star secondary and rebuilt defensive line, completing eight of 12 passes for 125 yards and a 140.6 passer rating. Leftwich was 4 for 7 for 67 yards and a 129.2 rating of his own.

Thats why they call it preseason, Trent Cole said. We still have a great team, and were going to pick this thing back up and keep this thing moving.

The Eagles were almost as bad on offense as defense, although their offensive problems were mainly due to Vick, who was strangely out of whack and never looked comfortable against a Super Bowl defense that ranked No. 1 in the NFL in points allowed last year.

I think once we got down 14-0, I just started pressing the issue, and I think thats a time when you have to be cautious and you have to be patient, Vick said. I knew I was only going to be in for two quarters and wanted to put some points on the board and pressed the issue too hard and wasnt patient, and that goes against the quarterbacks rulesif youre down 14 points, you have to let things happen, and I didnt do that. Just forced some throws I wouldnt normally make. Thats just not the way you can play football.

Vicks final line: 5 for 12 for 47 yards, three interceptions and a 13.5 passer rating. His longest completion was a 16-yarder to Riley Cooper.

Before we get too carried away, last year in the second preseason game, Vick was 1 for 5 for six yards, two interceptions and a 0.0 passer rating, and the Eagles lost 22-9 to the Bengals. Mass panic ensued then, too.

Every game is a four-quarter game, but I didnt have that much time, and I let that get the best of me, Vick said. As a veteran in this league, you have to understand the situation and be cognizant of it, and you just cant press the issue like I did tonight and make bad decisions. Just have to correct it, move on from it. The good thing is I acknowledged what I did and I know why I did what I did, and all those turnovers can be corrected.

Vince Young completed five of eight passes, but for only 34 yards and also got picked off once. Dion Lewis, the former Pitt star, committed the Eagles fifth turnover of the game, a fumble early in the fourth quarter. The Eagles five turnovers led to 17 of the Steelers points.

The lone bright spot among Eagles starters was LeSean McCoy, who returned to his college stadium and ran four times for 25 yards and caught one pass for 16 yards.

We feel like we have a great team, Vick said. We are capable of doing some big things this upcoming season. We are in a very humble state right now. I think as long as the guys can look back and look at the film and understand why things happened the way they did, then we can improve from it and move on. Thats the only thing thats keeping me upbeat right now. We got a piece of humble pie today.

Interesting to note that Jason Kelce, who has been splitting first-team reps with Jamaal Jackson, didnt get any reps with the starters Thursday night. Jackson started and played the entire first half. Kelce played the entire second half.

Kafka was sharp, completing 14 of 19 passes for 160 yards, including the two TDs to Jones and a 40-yarder to Pitt graduate Dion Lewisthe only play the Eagles had over 20 yards.

Lewis had a fumble but did net 59 yards on three touches, including two carries for 19 yards.

We can take a lot from it, learn from it, also put the Dream Team thing to rest, Matthews said. We still got to prove ourselves.

E-mail Reuben Frank at rfrank@comcastsportsnet.com.