Red zone is trouble zone for Eagles

Still in his grass-stained and sweat-soaked uniform nearly 30 minutes after the Eagles' galling 19-16 loss to Chicago tonight, Brian Westbrook sat in his locker with Correll Buckhalter perched to his left and Thomas Tapeh in a chair to his right. The running backs were as befuddled as everybody else.

"We were just basically talking about playing better and wondering how we lost that game," Buckhalter said a little later.

The Eagles lost their fourth game of the season because, as was the case the previous week against the New York Jets, they could not convert a red-zone appearance into seven points. It wasn't until their fourth trip into the red zone, trailing the Bears, 12-9, that the Eagles finally punched the ball into the end zone.

The other three times? A 24-yard David Akers field goal. A 33-yard Akers field goal. A 37-yard Akers field goal.

It's a good thing the Eagles have a reliable kicker. Otherwise, who knows where they'd be? Last in their division? Oh, wait, they're that already.

Just what is the problem with the offense? Player after player after player shook his head at that question. No one had an answer.

"It almost seems like we're hitting a wall in the red zone," guard Shawn Andrews said.

"It's frustrating we can't punch it in. We're a better team than that," Westbrook said.

"It's just one of those things. Guys need to start making more plays in the red zone," wide receiver Reggie Brown said.

And Brown was right. He'll see it on the film. On the Eagles' first red-zone opportunity, with the Birds looking at third-and-goal from the 6-yard line, Brown straddled the goal line and dropped a Donovan McNabb pass that he should have caught.

The ball was in his hands, then on the ground. Had he made that catch, the Eagles would have been up, 7-0, early, instead of 3-0. Confidence would have been high.

Instead, there was a sense of "here we go again."

The next time the Eagles got inside the Bears' 20, McNabb was hit as he threw on third down. The next possession, McNabb threw two incompletions, first deep to Kevin Curtis, then deep to Matt Schobel.

Field goal, field goal, field goal. It's tough to enjoy the fireworks when they're exploding to celebrate three more points.

After the game, coach Andy Reid was customarily curt but clearly perturbed by the red-zone inefficiency.

"We had opportunities early, and when you don't take advantage of them in the National Football League, you're going to run into trouble like this," Reid said.

"It's kind of a position that we're not used to," McNabb said. "You're trying to find any little answer that you can."