Eagles season on line as they face Giant showdown
If Eagles have any hopes of salvaging the season, they need a win against Manning and the Giants
PHILADELPHIA >> The season has been a struggle for the Eagles and Carson Wentz, who was nearly benched late in his last start, a disastrous, 48-7 loss to the New Orleans Saints exposing all of his flaws.
Eagles head coach Doug Pederson said Wentz was allowed to finish that game in the hope he would do something positive to build on. He didn’t, unless you appreciated the helmet throw. It’s not clear whether Wentz hit what he targeted.
The Eagles need to defeat the New York Giants, who are squarely in their sights Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field (1 p.m., Fox, WIP 94.1FM) in spite of their quarterback and his shaken confidence. It’s just their luck that Giants punching bag Eli Manning is coming off the most efficient performance of his career, the veteran completing 17 of 18 passes
(94.4 percent) for 231 yards, two touchdowns and a 155.8 passer rating in a 38-35 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last week.
The Bucs aren’t going to Super Bowl 53 in Atlanta. Nevertheless the last time the Eagles (4-6) scored more than 30 points was in a 34-13 victory over the Giants (3-7) earlier this season. The Eagles since have averaged 17 points in losing three of four starts.
“The talent on the offense isn’t matching the output we’re putting up week in and week out,” Eagles tight end Zach Ertz said. “We’ve got to fine tune everything. Go through everything with a fine-tooth comb and figure out how we can be better, because we’ve got six games left. If there is a silver lining it’s that the division isn’t out of reach. We could be back in this thing in the next two weeks. But we have to figure out our flaws as a team before we can look externally.”
Only four teams have averaged fewer points than the Eagles’ 20.5 points per game, and none of them are headed for the playoffs. The Eagles led the league with 38 touchdown passes last year. This year Wentz has had 15. Only 10 teams have fewer, including the entire NFC East of Dallas (13), Washington
(13) and the Giants (14).
Part of the problem is the Eagles have been unable to generate a decent running game.
The Giants, meanwhile, are figuring out how to get the best out of their one-two punch of running back Saquon Barkley and wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. Barkley rushed for a career-high 142 yards with two touchdowns and caught a TD pass last week. He has three 100yard games, including a 130-yard effort in the loss to the Eagles in which he scored twice.
The Eagles were tackling a lot better back then, injuries having wiped out their secondary and more recently claimed linebacker Jordan Hicks, who’d been a rock.
“They kind of see what they have in great value in Saquon,” Eagles linebacker Kamu Grugier-Hill said. “So they’re really trying to feed him the ball as much as they can. You’ve got to run through him. You’ve got to be physical tacklers. You can’t just arm tackle because he’s going to run through it or he’s going to jump over you. He’s a very unique talent.”
Then there’s that other problem: Turning Beckham loose on a secondary composed of defenders signed off the streets figures to be a great challenge for Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz. Doubling Beckham, as the Eagles did in the previous meeting with Malcolm Jenkins, would expose the poor-tackling back end to that 6-0, 233-pound runaway Barkley train. Did we mention the Eagles will be without Avonte Maddox, one of the many missing in the secondary and the only defender with the speed to keep up with Barkley?
While cheerleaders point out that victories this week and next, the latter against the Redskins, would put the Eagles right back in the divisional pennant race, the reality is they haven’t had a win streak this season. And what a strange one it’s been.
With two straight wins, the Giants so far have validated Beckham’s prediction that they’ll win out and reach the postseason. Giants head coach Pat Shurmur has been around long enough to realize just about anything is possible. He was the quarterbacks coach on the 2008 Eagles team that won on the last day to finish 9-6-1 and make the playoffs.
“I was always better at English than math,” Shurmur said. “So, I’m not going to add these things up until the end. I remember the one year in Philly. … We’re playing Dallas and all Dallas had to do was win and they’re in and we had to have like three things happen. And we ended up beating Dallas and those three things happened and we were in the playoffs. So, you really never know. That’s why you just keep playing it out. I feel like the NFC East is a very competitive division.”
Right now, the playoff percentages favor the Cowboys (6-5) and the Redskins (6-5), tied for the East lead entering Week 12. And the Redskins are trying to overcome the loss of quarterback Alex Smith.
“We’re excited,” Grugier-Hill said. “We’ve got everything ahead of us. And we’re going to do great things.”
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Zach Ertz needs 14 receptions to set the single-season Eagles record held by running back Brian Westbrook, who hauled in 90 passes in 2007. Westbrook teamed up with quarterback Jeff Garcia.
Ertz is five catches from establishing a single-season club record for receptions by a tight end. Keith Jackson set that mark with 81 playing with Randall Cunningham in 1988.
With a couple of grabs, Ertz would break into the 400 club. He would join Jimmy Graham, Jason Witten and Antonio Gates as the only tight ends with 400 receptions in their first six seasons.
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NOTES >> The Chester Cougars, Northwest Raiders, North Philadelphia Aztecs and Hype Titans are slated to play youth football games at halftime Sunday. … Cerebral safety Quintin Mikell, who knew the defense as well as the coaching staff, is the Eagles’ Santander Honorary Captain of the Game. … The Eagles have gone 25 games without a 100-yard rusher, including the playoffs, since LeGarrette Blount romped for 136 yards in a 26-24 win over the Chargers in Week 4 last season. It’s the longest active streak in the league.