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AND now for something completely different.

EAGLES 10 – giants 27

EAGLES STATS:

Passing: QB Marcus Mariota (13/20 – 65.0% – 148 – 1 – 1)

Rushing: RB Kenneth Gainwell (7 – 62 – 8.8 – 0 – 0)

Receiving: WR Quez Watkins (11 – 8 – 93 – 11.6 – 1)

Offensive Line Report: (TFL: 5/ Sacks: 5/ Scrums Won: 1/ Scrums Lost: 0)

Drive Killer: S Reid Blankenship (TD: 0/Int: 1/ FR: 0/ 4^th down stops: 0/ FF: 0)

Sack Leader: DT Marlon Tuipulotu (Sacks: 1.0/ FF: 0/ Tackles: 3)

Special Teams Ace: LB Ben VanSumeren downed punt at the 3 yard line.

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I hear you asking, “What about all the stuff that stats don’t reveal?” Well, that’s the reason for these Four Things articles. It’s to point out what we need to address BEFORE the game. Then AFTER the game, there’s a no-bullshit assessment of whether or not the Eagles did any of what they needed to do, to ensure the win.

So how much of what I mentioned in Four Things: GIANTS did the Eagles actually get around to doing? Well let’s see:

1) Contain the Run: Watching giants RB Saquon Barkley (18 – 46 – 2.6 – 2) run for two easy scores, made things look far worse than they were. However, on 21 hand-offs, the Eagles allowed just 65 yards (3.0 ypc). The only longs run that were difficult to pin inside, were scrambles by their QB. (DONE)

2) Get To the QB: The ask was for three or four sacks in this one; but all we came away with were 2 first half sacks. With our Secondary playing like every opposing receiver is dripping with Covid-19, the ball came out quickly, to wide open targets. It retarded our pass rush, and let their back-up QB nearly throw for 300 yards. (NOT DONE)

3) Spread and Run: The Eagles opted mostly for clumping the receivers on the ends of the Offensive Line. This had a way of pulling defenders into the box, and making it much easier to blitz our QB’s. There were a few nice runs by Gainwell (including a beautiful 32 yarder). Otherwise, nope. (NOT DONE)

4) Go Deep Aggressively: We didn’t connect on any passes of 20 yards or longer, but we did launch a few, which helped loosen the box up for Eagles runners (16 – 83 – 5.1 – 0 – 0). Sadly, we had just 16 hand-offs, compared with 36 pass attempts. When your back-up QB is shouldering most of that workload, that’s usually not going to be a winning combination.

Still, I said that 3 or 4 deep shots in a game is respectable; but 5 or more is putting your next opponent on notice. The NFL defines a “deep pass” in its official play-by-play as any pass that travels more than 15 yards downfield in the air. The Eagles attempted 9 such passes. (DONE)

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This week we managed 2 of the Four Things, in a loss. That ties up the season at 11 – 6, with us in the 5^th seed, traveling to back to Tampa Bay, for a prime time Wild Card game. This team owns two five game win streaks this year. Starting Monday, we only need a four game streak.

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Game Hero: QB Marcus Mariota – He came in and completed 65% of his passes, made actual use of Quez Watkins, and showed enough mobility to keep an air of dynamism in the Offense. He dived more than he slid, and the interception he threw, was on a play concept that we fans have been calling stupid, since last year.

While the Eagles may want to go younger at back-up next year, Mariota made a decent case for why he should get another year of Head Coach Nick Sirianni’s system under his belt.

Game goat: The Circumstances – Even if the Eagles won this game, we weren’t going to get that 2^nd seed. As I said in Four Things, “Barring an inspired act of God, Dallas isn’t going to lose to Washington, which makes the outcome of our game practically meaningless”.

And I was right.

Which is why I said that, this game is a “total freebie”, and we should use it as a tune-up. To his credit, Sirianni tried to straddle the line, and (kind of) took a swipe at winning. (You know. Just in case Washington stumbled over that miracle.)

Once it became clear that Washington was toast, and we got a second starter sent to the blue medical tent, Sirianni said “Neeeee-ope!” and yanked all his key players, for the playoff run that we’re about to make.

Can’t complain at all about the way he handled any of that.

On The Whole:

Getting the sweep on the giants would have been nice, but given how we started the game without three key starters (WR Devonta Smith, RB D’Andre Swift, and DT Fletcher Cox); it’s hard to judge the sputtering Offense, too harshly. (But feel free to mock our Defense!)

Once WR A.J. Brown (1 – 1 – 9 – 9.0 – 0) fumbled during an apparent knee injury, and after QB Jalen Hurts (7/16 – 43.7% – 55 – 0 – 1) had his finger dislocated, and was less effective when he tried to play through it, ALL key players were pulled.

While we did look flat at the start, there was never any point, where we going to get emotionally interested in this game. While we saw little to imply that the Eagles were coming out of their funk, in fairness, we also didn’t see much from the starters at all.