December 23, 2016
Matt Rourke/AP
After the Eagles-Giants game, Eli Manning tried to bite Carson Wentz's face, but Wentz still had his helmet on. That was a shrewd move by the rookie, who continues to learn the finer points of NFL quarterback play.
For the first time in a month and a half, the Philadelphia Eagles played a football game and scored more points than the other team. As always, win or lose, we hand out 10 awards.
The Eagles have dropped five straight games, but the one thing that would really make this season a disaster would be if Carson Wentz were to sustain some sort of serious injury. In the second half, Wentz was driven into the ground by Giants DE Olivier Vernon and he was taken to the locker room for concussion testing. He passed, as Wentz said, "with flying colors" and returned shortly thereafter. Disaster averted.
Of course, Doug Pederson called a double reverse with Wentz as the lead blocker like two minutes after he returned from the concussion protocol, because ... of course, he did.
All season long, it feels a lot like the Eagles have had an abnormal number of obviously wrong calls go against them. Against the Giants, Nolan Carroll committed what looked like pass interference on a crucial fourth down play that the officials did not call.
So why did the Eagles start getting questionable calls going their way?
Well, the Dallas Cowboys clinched the No. 1 seed in the NFC with the Giants' loss, meaning that they benefited from an Eagles win. I would like to note here that the NFL's head of officiating, Dean Blandino, doubles as the Cowboys' No. 1 fan.
What do you expect? @DeanBlandino on Cowboys Party Bus pic.twitter.com/DB8jpswEmz
— Bears Podcast (@BearsPodcast) September 26, 2016
In the Eagles' first matchup with the Giants this year, Carson Wentz had a chance to finish off Eli Manning after Manning threw a late pick to Jordan Hicks. Instead, Wentz misfired on a slot fade route to Jordan Matthews and the Giants escaped with the win.
Against the Giants Thursday night, it was the Giants who were playing from behind, and the Eagles were able to thwart several late-game drives, with the final nail in the coffin coming on an interception via reserve safety Terrence Brooks.
Eli threw three picks, so, you know, here's a gratuitous Eli face gif, because ... why not?
Hat trick. pic.twitter.com/nmlnTzdUe6
— Jimmy Kempski (@JimmyKempski) December 23, 2016
Jenkins had two of the aforementioned picks of Eli, and he returned one to the house for a score. That was his second pick six of the season. In 2015, Jenkins put himself in position to make a lot of huge plays, but often dropped interceptions. This season, he hasn't put himself in as many positions to make the big play, but when he has, he has capitalized on his opportunities.
In his post-game press conference, Jenkins revealed that the Eagles made up a play on the sideline at the end of the game because they were tired of watching Odell Beckham Jr. run wild through their secondary. The Eagles had Jalen Mills play man-to-man on OBJ, while the rest of the defense played zone, similar to a basketball concept called "box-and-one," which is designed to contain star players.
In 2016, heading into this game, the Eagles have gone 0-6 in games decided by seven or fewer points. Conversely, in games decided by six or fewer points, the Giants were 7-1.
Make that 1-6, and 7-2.
On his first target of the game, Agholor had an egregious drop on a slant route. Naturally, he was destroyed on social media.
Later, Agholor got his first touchdown since Week 1 when he was able to get behind the defense for a 40-yard score.
Johnson made his return from a 10-game suspension against the Giants, and he looked pretty freaking good on Darren Sproles' opening drive touchdown run. Johnson was playing the best football of his career when his suspension went into effect way back Week 6, and he looked like he didn't miss a beat.
What could have been...
Leading up to this game, Eagles players were peppered with questions about whether or not they would take pride in spoiling the Giants' chances to clinch a playoff berth with a win in Philly. Unanimously, they said they didn't care about that, and that the focus was on what they needed to do to get better as a team.
But that doesn't mean that Eagles fans can't re-live what it felt like to win an NFC East game, which the Birds had not yet done this season.
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