At a critical turn, Eagles were in all the right spots
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. >> Whether they would concede so or not as they boarded their team bus Thursday, the Eagles were about to play a game that would re-shape their season. Fortunately for them, they were headed to the right place. Fortunately for them, there will always be the Meadowlands.
It’s where they go to heal. Since the late 1970s, it’s where they regularly have come to believe in football miracles. It’s where Eli Manning works. It’s all of that.
Not that any NFL season will be defined in Week 6, for there are too many ankles still to sprain, too many road trips still to endure and too many stay yellow flags capable of getting in their way. But the stakes for the Eagles as they were to play the New York Giants Thursday were clear. Were they to win, they would be in first place in the NFC East. Were they to lose, they would be in last. Pretty big game. And that made it the perfect spot to correct whatever it was that caused three losses in their last four games and caused many of their fans to break their solemn vow. Which one? The one that said that all it would take was one Super Bowl championship to soothe them with eternal football peace. For as long as there is a football stadium at the north point of the New Jersey Turnpike, the Eagles will always have a happy place.
The Eagles won Thursday, 3413, settling into a 3-3 record before the weekend had even begun. And they did it with Carson Wentz looking the way he’d looked a year earlier, and with Manning looking the way he too typically looked against them late in his disintegrating career. Three seconds. Three of ‘em. Three. That’s how long it took for the Giants to begin to lift the cloud that had been following the Birds for weeks. That’s how long it took Jawill Davis to drop the opening kickoff. Never mind, either, that a replay would show that the Giants’ returner technically was down before the ball blurted loose. The play said plenty. It said the Giants were not ready for a night full of panicked flurries from a championship team.
Within two offensive plays, Manning, who had lost 10 of his last 13 starts against the Eagles, made it plain that he was about to make it 11 of 14. That’s when he flipped a weak pass toward Scott Simonson that was intercepted by Kamu Grugier-Hill, the Eagles taking possession at the New York 18. From that lovely gift, Wentz ducked out of a thirdand-seven Giants assault, scrambled and found Alshon Jeffery open in the end zone.
Manning was not through, though, with his early sloppiness. On the second New York possession, he failed to produce a touchdown, even though Saquon Barkley had taken a 46yard carry into the red zone. Then, with many of the 77,000 fans still wandering in from their tailgating, Manning fumbled on the first play of the Giants’ third possession. Though it was recovered by teammate Nate Solder, the Giants would be trapped at their one, with little room for escape.
So it was, within three opportunities, the Giants already had cleared a path for the Eagles to rescue their season. And when, just when, are the Eagles going give Manning his rightful spot on their franchise honor roll?
Even with all of their offseason changes and some of their in-season injuries, the Eagles are still a championship team. But there was evidence of doubt littered around their room after a 23-21 loss to Minnesota Sunday. Even the team mummer was caught listing problem spots, not scolding others for finding any.
“I think everybody has to take a long look in the mirror, find out how they can do a better job, where their mistakes are, how they can eliminate those mistakes, how you can eliminate penalties,” Jason Kelce said in the rat-a-tattat cadence he’d used in his viral championship-acceptance speech. “Because if we do that, that’s really what’s stopping us.”
At 2-3, the Birds were due for good self-examination. But one of the losses was in overtime, another without Wentz, and the Minnesota game by a deuce. There had been troublesome Eagles teams over the years. To that point, the 2018 outfit was not yet one.
So to North Jersey the Eagles came to get their Herm Edwards on, their Brian Westbrook on, their DeSean Jackson on. It’s what they do in times of crisis, overwhelming or otherwise.
“Gas it up on Thursday night,” defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz said during the short work week. “You can go on fumes for a game. It’s hard to go play on short rest for multiple weeks in a row, but we don’t have to. We’ve got to do it this one time. We did it last year on the road at Carolina. We had some injury situations and were able to get that energy going.
“Our players know what time it is and how important this game is.”
In a moment of crisis, the Birds played with familiar efficiency. Wentz threw three touchdown passes. Jeffery and Nelson Agholor were ever present in the passing lanes. Manning, as usual, had little room to move.
Even if Barkley showed the potential to bend NFC East results for years, the Giants were not going to win, not in that spot, not with the Eagles just as desperate and with a much more capable quarterback.
So as the Eagles returned home early Friday morning, they were in first place, even with the .500 Redskins yet 1-0 in the division.
As they had been all night, they were in the right spot.