This game is no doubt going to be a defensive battle on Monday Night Football.  The Eagles can’t afford to throw the ball every down in this game to have success.  The Redskins will be likely blitzing a little bit more than usual taking a page from the game plan the Raiders used last week to shut the Eagles down.  To slow the blitzing the Eagles must run the ball and throw screen passes to Brian Westbrook and Lesean McCoy.  If the Eagles don’t have any threat of a running game than Donovan McNabb will be a sitting duck like last week.  The Redskins give up 118.0 yards rushing per game so the Eagles would be smart to mix things up better on offense in this game.

It will be interesting to see how new offensive co-ordinator Sherm Lewis plans to attack the Eagles’ D.  The thought here is that Clinton Portis and Ladell Betts will be very busy running the ball against a Eagles’ D that is allowing 103.8 yards rushing per game but only 3.6 yards per carry.  The Eagles will be blitzing from the minute they get off the team bus so look for Jason Campbell to throw a lot of short passes to TE Chris Cooley.  The Raiders’ TE Zach Miller repeatedly torched the Eagles last week so look for Cooley to have a big game.  If the Eagles start to sneak up to stop the running game and the TE look for the Redskins to throw the ball downfield no matter who the QB is.

PREDICTION:  EAGLES 16, REDSKINS 13