Usually, we're the team setting the tempo, but they came out ready to play. They out-executed us, point blank and simple. When a quarterback has seven touchdowns, we have to sit there and take that personal."
Foles came into Sunday's game with 12 passing touchdowns in eight NFL starts over a season and a half. He was at the helm only because starter Michael Vick is recuperating from a hamstring injury. In his previous start, against the Dallas Cowboys on Oct. 20, Foles completed 11 of 29 passes for 80 yards — and zero touchdowns.
It took him less than a quarter to crack the end zone against the Raiders, on a 2-yard pass to tight end Brent Celek, and he soon began chucking up touchdowns at a shocking pace.
By the time he was finished, Foles had tossed seven, including three to wide receiver Riley Cooper.
"At the end of the day, that was an old-fashioned butt-whuppin'," Raiders head coach Dennis Allen said.
Only six other NFL quarterbacks had recorded seven passing touchdowns in a game: the Bears' Sid Luckman in 1943, Philadelphia's Adrian Burk in 1954, the Oilers' George Blanda in 1961, the Giants' Y.A. Tittle in 1962, Minnesota's Joe Kapp in 1969 and Denver's Peyton Manning in the opening game of this season.
Foles joins them at the top the heap, and he threw just one pass after the third quarter, eventually giving way to backup Matt Barkley.
"There's a sign in our office. I walk by it all the time," Eagles coach Chip Kelly said. "Adrian Burk did it in Griffith Stadium (in Washington). I know what the record is. But this isn't about records, it's about going out and getting a win. If I put Nick out there to try to get a record and he gets hurt, that's being silly."
Anyway, Philadelphia was up 49-13 after three quarters. Why risk another injury when the opponent is already hunched over and gasping?
There was little to forewarn Raiders fans this was coming. Their defense had yielded 276 yards in a 21-18 victory over the Steelers a week earlier, and just 216 in a loss at Kansas City the week before that. Only once this season had a team scored more than 24 points on the Raiders. And of course, Foles' performance was a little surprising.
Asked if he had seen anything on film to make him believe Nick Foles could have a seven-touchdown day against his defense, free safety Charles Woodson said: "I don't think Nick Foles ever seen anything on film that would give him any indication that he'd throw for seven touchdowns."
The Philadelphia offense, a fast-paced attack that Kelly brought from the University of Oregon, created a lot of buzz early in the year. But it hadn't been anything special lately. The Eagles had scored just 10 points total in their two previous games, back-to-back losses to Dallas and the Giants. Kelly said he didn't unveil any plays Sunday that his team hadn't run earlier this year.
And yet the pace — Philadelphia runs a lot of no-huddle plays — seemed to hypnotize the Raiders.
The Eagles scored touchdowns on their first four possessions, and on three of their first four in the second half, and they never held the ball for more than four minutes. They had scoring drives of nine seconds, 46 seconds and 51 seconds.
"I think you can read your press clippings, and that can factor into it," Woodson admitted. "Like you say, the last couple of weeks there have been a lot of great things said about us, and not just the defense but overall. What we did today was open ourselves up for those attacks going forward. We'll have to hear about it all week long."
Indeed, they will. They'll hear about Cooper's career day, which included victimizing rookie cornerback DJ Hayden on scoring catches of 17 and 63 yards. They'll hear about former Cal star DeSean Jackson catching five passes for 150 yards, including a 46-yard touchdown on which he burned corner Mike Jenkins. They'll hear about former Stanford tight end Zach Ertz scoring his first NFL touchdown on a 15-yard pass from Foles.
At times, the Eagles' yardage was startlingly easy. With Philadelphia up 28-13 at the start of the second half, halfback Le-Sean McCoy wound up all alone at the right sideline. He welcomed Foles' pass and waltzed 25 yards for a touchdown.
The Oakland offense wasn't nearly good enough to keep pace. Halfback Darren McFadden tweaked his hamstring and left the game after just five rushing attempts, and quarterback Terrelle Pryor ran for his life for most of the afternoon. Pryor finished with 288 passing yards and 94 on the ground, but had a pair of interceptions and no touchdown passes.
He injured his knee late in the game, after he was already earmarked to be replaced by No. 2 quarterback Matt McGloin.
Now it's time to prepare for a trip to New Jersey to face the Giants, but it will be hard for the Raiders to wash the taste of this one out of their mouths.
"It's not easy to look past this," linebacker Kevin Burnett said. "You have to, or it's gonna continue over to next week. But this one hurts."
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You can reach Staff Writer Phil Barber at 521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com.
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