What happened?
The Eagles and Giants went back and forth all game long, but in the end, the Eagles had one more big play than the Giants, and held on to win a shootout in the Meadowlands. The win gives the Eagles sole possession of first place in the NFC East with three games left.
The Good:
DeSean Jackson had the game of his life, catching six passes for 178 yards and a touchdown, and returning a punt 72 yards for a touchdown. He also tied the NFL record for most scoring plays over 50 yards in a single season.
Donovan McNabb missed on a few plays, but did well otherwise. He finished the game completing 17 of 26 passes for 275 yards and two touchdowns.
Brent Celek had another solid game, catching five passes for 64 yards and a touchdown.
The big play came out on defense, too. Sheldon Brown returned a Brandon Jacobs fumble 60 yards for a touchdown. The Eagles would force four turnovers on the day, but I'll get to the rest of the defense in a minute.
The Bad:
The running game couldn't get anything going at all after pounding the Giants six weeks ago. Leonard Weaver led the way with just 33 yards on nine carries. As a team, Philadelphia only had 77 yards on 24 attempts.
The defense didn't get much pressure on Eli Manning until late in the fourth quarter, and as a result, he pretty much had his way with the secondary. Darren Howard was the best player on the line, recording two sacks.
Though the Eagles only had six penalties called against them, it seemed like they were playing very sloppy at times.
The Ugly:
Quintin Mikell had a horrible game. He was called for illegal contact on back to back plays in the second quarter, which kept a New York scoring drive alive, and was later called for unnecessary roughness.
The defense as a whole just did not play well tonight. Eli Manning picked apart the secondary for most of the night, and the Giants finished the game with over 500 yards of total offense. If not for a few big plays by the offense and mistakes by New York's defense, this game could have gone another way altogether.
The Breakdown:
I said it the last time the Eagles and Giants played, and I'll say it again: there is very little that tops beating up on the New York Giants. In the most important game of the season so far, both teams came out swinging, and the result was a matchup that felt like a heavyweight title fight. Luckily for us Philadelphia fans, the Eagles came out on top when the final bell sounded, but it wasn't without a few problems.
I'll start with the good, though. Just like the first time these two teams met this year, the Eagles came out and jumped on the Giants early. The opening drive of the game resulted in a touchdown pass from Donovan McNabb to Brent Celek, and the Giants responded by promptly fumbling the ball to Sheldon Brown, who returned it 60 yards for a touchdown. The big play was working all night for the Eagles, especially in the hands of DeSean Jackson. After missing the game against Atlanta with a concussion, Jackson came back tonight and didn't miss a beat. He caught a 32 yard pass from Michael Vick on the opening drive, then returned a Jeff Feagles punt 72 yards for a touchdown on one of the best punt returns I'd ever seen an Eagles player make...and this was just in the first half. He would strike again on a 60 yard bomb from McNabb in the third quarter that put the Eagles back on top for good.
I've praised DeSean Jackson all year, and tonight is no different. Yes, he is a very cocky player, but at the same time, he's very, very good. There's a reason why the Eagles drafted him and gave him so much playing time as a rookie. The man has talent and skills above anyone else in Philadelphia's wide receiving corps, and he's a threat to score each and every time he has the ball. He's fast, he's versatile and he knows how to make plays. He has 947 receiving yards on the year, and that's with missing one game and having totals of nine yards and a single yard in two others. He hasn't found that perfect consistency quite yet, but he's not showing the same signs of fatigue that he had at this point last year. In time, he'll be able to put up solid numbers in every game, but for right now, he is the biggest playmaker on the field for the Eagles.
That being said, without the big plays tonight, there's no way that the Eagles would have won this game. The defense was just horrible all game long. In the first quarter, Brandon Jacobs was able to run over, around and through defenders, and when they started playing closer to the line of scrimmage to stop Jacobs, Eli Manning was able to throw over them for big gains. Manning finished the game with 391 passing yards, a new career high. Jacobs was eventually slowed down once the Eagles took a big enough lead, but both he and Ahmad Bradshaw finished with over 50 yards rushing and a touchdown. Even with the win, the defense has to play better this late in the season. Corners were jumping routes all night and guessing wrong, players were missing assignments or biting on play action fakes, which left receivers open, and tackles were just missed by almost everyone out on the field at some point and time. I honestly lost track of how many missed tackles there were that led to touchdowns, but at least two plays had bad tackling that directly led to long scoring plays by Hakeem Nicks and Domenik Hixon. Plus, if it weren't for Mario Manningham not knowing where the sideline was, the Giants would have scored at least one more touchdown and had another with over four minutes left on the clock in the fourth quarter.
The Eagles had leads of 14 points three times in this game, and twice the Giants were able to climb back to within four points or fewer because of the defense. In the middle of the third quarter, New York actually took the lead on the aforementioned 61 yard touchdown pass from Eli Manning to Domenik Hixon. Once again, the big plays are what saved the Eagles tonight, but I'm not complaining about that. I just think there needs to be more of a balance to the offense than having to rely on big plays every week. The teams that are going to make the playoffs are going to be able to force this offense to make shorter plays. Remember how the NFC Championship game went last year? Sure, the Eagles got their big plays, but who won the game? That's what tonight felt like, only the Eagles were on the winning side. I wouldn't be giving the defense their just due if I didn't mention the four turnovers they forced, including a nice sack/strip by Darren Howard on the last New York offensive play of the game.
With all of that being said, the ball is squarely in Philadelphia's court now. The Eagles have a two game lead over the Giants, and a game lead over Dallas with three games left to play. Next week, the Eagles get the San Francisco 49ers, who are coming out east after playing on Monday Night, while the Cowboys get a short week to prepare for the New Orleans Saints. If all goes well, the Eagles can get themselves in a prime position with a win next Sunday, but I'm not going to get ahead of myself now. I'm going to sit back and enjoy the season sweep over the Giants and celebrate the fact that the Eagles never have to play at the Meadowlands again.
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