Matt Cassel slices and dices Eagles as Vikings rampage, 48-30…

The Philadelphia Eagles coaching staff decided they did not want Cordarrelle Patterson to beat them on kickoff returns. So they elected to pooch their kickoffs to the Vikings' 25 yard line. The result was veteran QB Matt Cassel wound up starting many of his drives first-and-10 from his own 40.

I don't know if Cassel and the Vikings perceived that strategy as a disrespect to their offensive unit. But I know I did. And Cassel and his guys made us pay.

It was that kind of day in Minneapolis on Sunday—a lot of emotional payback playing out on many levels.

It sets up a must-win scenario for the Eagles next Sunday night against Chicago for the Birds to have any real shot at making the playoffs.

The belated good news is nobody else in the NFC East won yesterday either—including the Dallas Cowboys (7-7), who blew a huge lead to the Green Bay Packers.

The Minnesota Vikings, minus five starters, including the only two running backs to carry the ball for them this season, and winners of just three of 13 games, took it to the Eagles from start to finish, were helped by a couple of breaks along the way and finished with a 48-30 triumph.

Cassel attacked the previously reliable Eagles' deep coverage personnel with astounding success and the Vikings' defense did just enough to keep a second-half uprising by the Eagles from getting out of control.

What's more, the Eagles (8-6) lost all self-control by game's end, drawing a taunting penalty and two more flags for unnecessary roughness in a three-minute span of the fourth quarter. Cassel ended all hopes of an Eagles comeback by finishing up that sequence with a 5-yard pass to Patterson to make it 41-22.

While Cassel (26-for-35, 382 yards, two TDs, one interception) thrived, his Eagles counterpart struggled. Foles, who entered with the NFL's highest passer rating, did not have his usual accuracy, throwing behind or wildly to open receivers and holding the ball too long at times, leading to four sacks. He did pass for 428 yards and three touchdowns, but needed 48 attempts to do it.

In the meantime, LeSean McCoy was held to 38 yards on eight carries after the Eagles abandoned all attempt for offensive balance much earlier than usual.

But it was their defense that let them down most, allowing Cassel six completions of longer than 20 yards, including a 57-yard bomb to Greg jennings that started the scoring and landed starting safety Patrick Chung on the bench in favor of Kurt Coleman.

A sluggish pass rush was the main culprit, however. On that first touchdown, Cassel held the ball for 6 seconds before loading up to fire it downfield.

Minnesota converted eight of 13 third-down attempts and was able to add an exclamation point to its win with one final TD after the Eagles closed to within 11 points with more than four minutes remaining.

"I thought we had a great week of practice," Eagles coach Chip Kelly said. "But we don't make excuses. We didn't play well enough to win today."

Yet despite all the big plays they gave up, the Eagles still had a chance to steal this one after scoring a pair of touchdowns in a three-minute span near the end of the third quarter. First, Foles found DeSean Jackson for a 30-yard touchdown with 3:20 to play in the 3rd.

He then hit tight end Zach Ertz, who made a one-handed grab of a 3-yard lob with 19 seconds remaining in the quarter, cutting what had been an 18-point lead to five points.

In between, linebacker Mychal Kendricks intercepted a tipped pass to set up the Ertz TD, which everyone on the Eagles sideline believed would be the start of a comeback similar to the previous week's, when they turned a 14-0 deficit into a 34-20 win over Detroit.

But after their ensuing two-point conversion failed and their short kickoff — ordered by Kelly as a master plan to keep the ball out of the hands of Patterson, a dangerous returner — was returned to the Minnesota 46, the Vikings needed just six plays to get seven of those points back, and Matt Asiata finishing it off with a 1-yard plunge.

The game actually might have turned before the Eagles' mini surge, though, as they attempted to convert a fourth-and-inches from their 24-yard line with 6:26 remaining in the third quarter. They tried to run it up the gut with McCoy, the NFL's rushing leader. He didn't make it, and the Vikings responded with a field goal to go up 27-9.

"I was pushing my guy to the left and Shady tried to hit that hole," center Jason Kelce said. "It looked like he just dove forward. I'm not sure why we didn't get it. I'm going to have to go back and watch the film. But it wasn't very good.

"And in all honesty, we shouldn't have been in that situation. If we did a better job on third down, when we had a better play called, I thought, then we're not in that situation."

Kelly believed it was a gamble worth taking at the time and believed the same thing after the game.

"I thought that we could make it," he said. "I also thought if we don't make it, we're in trouble. If we can't get a half a yard, that tells you what the day is about. You have to think on fourth-and-half-a-yard, we can get half a yard.

"They didn't blitz, it wasn't like there was an all-out coming at us. We needed to come off the ball and get some movement at the point of attack and dig ourselves out of that hole right there. We hadn't gotten anything going at that point in time, so we were hoping we could jump-start something there."

Actually, the Eagles might not have been in that situation had Foles not committed an egregious and unnecessary low block that wiped a beautifully executed double-reverse for a touchdown by Jackson off the board in the second quarter.

A touchdown and an extra point there would have tied the game at 10-all. Instead, Alex Henery had to kick a 51-yard field goal to make it 10-6, and the Eagles would get no closer the rest of the way.

"We need to execute early on in the game to get the momentum," Foles said. "Hats off to the Vikings. They played hard today. They outplayed us today, but it is games like this that are going to make us better."

Problem is, Nick, not winning a game like this just cost the Eagles a chance to control their own destiny in the NFC East divisional race. Now Dallas is back in the driver's seat, even with an inferior record. The math gets a little complicated, but if the Eagles and Dallas should end the regular season with identical records, Dallas wins the division…and the Eagles would go home for the winter, no doubt wondering how they let this one slip away in Minneapolis.