The Eagles defense took the field with 8:19 remaining in the first quarter armed with a 10-0 lead. The Eagles were physical with the Patriots on their opening drive knocking quarterback Tom Brady to the ground twice and getting off the field after allowing one first down.

Here's how the next five drives went for the Patriots offense - touchdown, touchdown, missed field goal, touchdown and field goal. Opening drive of the second half? Another touchdown. The issues for the Eagles defense snowballed as the team was handed a 38-20 loss on Sunday afternoon at Lincoln Financial Field.

Brady was virtually flawless after that opening drive as he finished 24-of-34 for 361 yards with three touchdowns against no interceptions for a 134.6 QB Rating. Cornerback Asante Samuel spent five years in New England as a teammate of Brady's and surmised at the end of the game that it was probably "one of the worst, embarrassing losses" that he's ever dealt with.

"He's a great player," Samuel said. "They had the run game working. They had the pass game working. They were working on all cylinders."

The Eagles did not have a fully healthy Nnamdi Asomugha at their disposal on Sunday. Asomugha suffered a hyperextended knee in Thursday's practice, but was active after testing the knee in pre-game warmups. However, cornerback Brandon Hughes made his first career start at right cornerback in place of Asomugha, who played sparingly throughout the game.

Only four players caught a pass for the Patriots, but they each impacted the game. Wes Welker led the way with eight catches for 115 yards and two touchdowns. Deion Branch caught six passes for 125 yards. The dynamic tight end duo of Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez combined for 10 catches, 121 yards and a touchdown. On the ground, BenJarvus Green-Ellis did most of his damage early in the game as he finished with just 44 rushing yards, but had two touchdowns.

So, what happened after that first drive?

"I don't think we still know what changes they made," defensive tackle Cullen Jenkins said. "They came out and started adjusting on us. They spread it wide a little bit, threw the quick pass on us. Didn't really give us a chance to huddle. It's just something we didn't adjust well enough to. It turned fast on us and once it turned, we weren't able to get it back."

On the first touchdown drive, the Patriots converted four third downs - two of them were thanks to penalties by the Eagles. The second touchdown drive, which came early in the second quarter, included the Patriots converting a third-and-13 where Branch caught a pass behind a diving Hughes and raced 63 yards to the Eagles' 1-yard line.

Later in the second quarter, after a three-and-out by the Eagles offense, the Patriots unleashed the no huddle. On the fifth and final play of the drive, the linebackers and safety Nate Allen bit on a play-action fake and Welker was left all alone for a 41-yard touchdown. Allen shouldered the blame for the score.

"They just had so many different formations and Brady, he's like a coach out there on the field," Allen said. "They just executed better than us tonight."

Trailing 24-13 at halftime, the Eagles needed a stop from the defense to try and get back into the game on the opening drive of the second half. After one 1-yard run by Green-Ellis on the field play of the drive, the Patriots went no huddle again and Brady was unstoppable marching the team the final 68 yards. Brady hit Welker for a 9-yard touchdown to put the game out of reach at 31-13.

"Brady just started to get things moving and he was tough to stop," cornerback Joselio Hanson said. "They gameplanned pretty good. They had some good plays. They whooped us tonight. Man or zone, he couldn't be stopped today."

Jenkins admitted that the team took the foot off the gas pedal a little bit after jumping out to the 10-0 lead. The Eagles have only four days how to figure out to figure out what went wrong before going out west to take on the Seahawks on Thursday night.

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