Plummer Strikes Eagles

The Comeback Kid made another comeback at the expense of his favorite foil.

Jake Plummer threw a 35-yard touchdown pass to MarTay Jenkins with 9 seconds left, lifting the Arizona Cardinals to a 21-20 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday.

With no timeouts, Plummer led the Cardinals 74 yards in 1:04 for his fifth fourth-quarter comeback victory over Philadelphia and 13th in his career. He completed passes of 16 and 28 yards to Jenkins before connecting on fourth-and-10 for the game-winner.

It was the first time Plummer rallied his team to victory in the fourth quarter since beating Dallas 32-31 on Sept. 10, 2000.

"I pumped the ball to David (Boston), the whole secondary was biting on the pump, so I threw it back across the field where I knew I had a guy there," Plummer said. "It was just like we drew it up."

Donovan McNabb threw two touchdowns passes to Todd Pinkston, and Correll Buckhalter had 134 yards rushing for the Eagles.

Plummer was 18-of-32 for 238 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. Jenkins had 119 yards receiving, and Michael Pittman added 83 yards rushing.

The Cardinals (1-2) had lost nine straight, dating back to last season.

"It was a desperation pass, he underthrew it and the guy made a great play," Eagles safety Damon Moore said of the game-winning touchdown.

Jenkins beat Pro Bowl cornerback Troy Vincent for the winning score.

"They were really overlooking us," Jenkins said. "They were looking forward to their bye week and their upcoming opponents. We were offended by that."

Vincent said he never saw the ball coming.

"We were in a zone, I saw a receiver coming free, didn't see where the ball was and ran back and tried to make a play," Vincent said.

Philadelphia, coming off two victories by a combined 46 points, fell behind 14-0 in the first quarter. But McNabb rallied the Eagles with scoring passes of 13 and 2 yards to Pinkston, and David Akers hit field goals of 42 and 28 yards.

Bill Gramatica missed a 30-yarder wide left that would've tied the game on Arizona's first possession in the third quarter. Then Plummer drove Arizona from its 22 to Philadelphia's 12 in seven plays before throwing an interception to Jeremiah Trotter with 9:54 remaining.

"With a guy like Plummer, you can't let him hang around," Eagles defensive end Brandon Whiting said. "You have to put him away when you have chances. He's done this throughout his career. He did it in college."

Buckhalter, starting in place of injured Duce Staley, went over the 100-yard mark with a 37-yard run late in the fourth quarter. He had 99 yards and a touchdown in a 40-18 victory over Dallas last week.

McNabb's 2-yard TD pass to Pinkston gave the Eagles their first lead, 17-14 with :05 left in the first half. McNabb completed consecutive passes of 20 yards to Brian Mitchell and 18 yards to Na Brown on the drive.

The Eagles cut it to 14-7 on a 13-yard TD pass to Pinkston with 7 seconds left in the first quarter. A 56-yard screen pass to Mitchell set up the score.

Philadelphia (2-2) has a bye before playing the New York Giants on Oct. 22.

"You have 15 days to live with it," Eagles coach Andy Reid said. "It's hard enough to live with it for a week. That's a kick in the tail."

Arizona took a 7-0 lead just 54 seconds into the game when Kyle Vanden Bosch returned a fumble 9 yards for a touchdown. Rob Fredrickson sacked McNabb to force the fumble, the first takeaway of the season for the Cardinals.

The Cardinals made it 14-0 on a 2-yard TD pass to Joel Makovicka. The 14-play, 70-yard drive was the first time Arizona scored a touchdown on its opening drive in 52 games.

Philadelphia cut it to 14-10 on Akers' 42-yarder midway through the second. His 28-yarder made it 20-14 with 1:13 left.

Game notes:
A 71-yard TD pass from McNabb to Pinkston in the first quarter was negated by a holding penalty against Buckhalter. The play still went for 51 yards, but McNabb threw an interception three plays later that led to Arizona's second touchdown. ... The start of the game was delayed nine minutes as part of President Bush's speech announcing the U.S. military began strikes against terrorist camps in Afghanistan was shown on the stadium's big screen. The sellout crowd of more than 66,360 fans immediately began cheering when they saw images of the military action. ... McNabb has thrown two TD passes to a different receiver in each game.

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Author: 6 - ABC, Action News