How do I start this one?

Should I go positive?

“Jake Elliott! What a leg! Fly Eagles fly!”

Or should I go “Negadelphia?”

“A 61-yard field goal? Who gives a shit! They blew a 14-point fourth quarter lead!”

You probably feel some combination of those two emotions. You’re excited for another win over a division, rival but concerned with the late collapse and near-epic failure.

Let’s be honest with ourselves; the Giants had no business being in that game. This was a team that had scored one touchdown in 11 quarters of football before the Eagles rolled out the red carpet and allowed them into the end zone three times in six minutes. Those are the kinds of sequences that destroy seasons and get coaches fired.

But if we’re being critical there, then credit is absolutely due for the way the Eagles responded. They did it twice in the game’s waning moments, pulling even on drives of 75 and 47 yards. Elliott hit from 46 and 61 to make up for an earlier miss. And the Birds found a way to gut it out and get it done.

1. Running the damn football

Did you hear the boos after the second series? It felt like we might be on the path to another pass-heavy play calling adventure.

But Doug Pederson went to the run game on the third series, a 90-yard touchdown drive that featured 63 yards on the ground. They did it without Darren Sproles, last week’s leading rusher, who left via injury midway through that drive.

They reached 13 runs by 3:41 in the second quarter, matching their entire total from the Week 2 Kansas City loss.

Pederson ran the ball 33 times between the four active running backs. Carson Wentz scrambled on a few more occasions and took three sacks on 37 called pass plays.

They finished 53/47 in pass/run split for a very balanced output:

2. Roll that Blount

One week after finishing with zero carries, LeGarrette Blount was much more involved.

More important than the attempts might be the way they used him in a downhill fashion, running him with Wentz under-center and avoiding the east/west and shotgun stuff ala Chip Kelly and DeMarco Murray.

This was one of those situations, where they ran Blount behind that off-tackle bunch formation for a big gain, similar to what we saw in Week 1:

Look at the difference, then, on a play like this, where he starts from the shotgun:

That’s just not his game.

On the flip side, Wendell Smallwood did have some decent runs from the shotgun, especially on that draw play that they’ve used with success before.

In a best-case scenario, you’ve got a power runner (Blount), a shifty sweep and off-tackle runner (Sproles), and a guy who is somewhere in between (Smallwood). We’ll see what happens with Sproles’ injury.

That doesn’t even take into account Corey Clement, who went outside for a beautiful game-tying touchdown in the fourth. Where does he fit in?

3. The good, the bad, and the rest

Carson Wentz finished 21-of-31 for 176 yards and a touchdown.

It wasn’t a resume-building win, but the most important thing to me is that he didn’t turn the ball over. Prior to this game, Wentz had thrown a pick or lost a fumble in 10 of his previous 11 outings dating back to 10/30/17.

Otherwise, it was sort of a “good play/bad play” kind of rollercoaster in this one.

He overthrew a wide open Alshon Jeffery in the second quarter, but found him in the fourth to set up the game-winning field goal.

He took a bad sack on a fourth and eight, but avoided another by getting the ball in his left hand and shot-putting it away.

He made the wrong read on a Trey Burton checkdown, but converted a couple of fourth and shorts with QB sneaks.

Know what I mean, bo? It was good/bad/good/bad/good/bad/good.

One guy who called 94 WIP asked if this was a “signature win” for Carson Wentz. Jamaal Jackson sort of laughed it off, but admitted that Wentz did enough in the fourth quarter to put the team in a position to win. That’s probably a fair answer. Wentz did, after all, lead multiple, successful fourth quarter drives, did he not?

4. Left guard by committee

It looks like the Eagles found their left guard, and it’s actually the third guy on the depth chart.

Chance Warmack, who started for the benched Isaac Seumalo, split time with Stefan Wisniewski. Warmack looked shaky early and gave up a sack on the first play of the Eagles’ second drive. Wisniewski came in a bit later and played the bulk of the snaps (44 vs. 32).

The line looked much better after those first two drives, especially when Pederson went to the run game and added more balance to the offense. He confirmed that offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland made the call to put Wisniewski in the game while communicating it to the head ball coach.

Pederson:

“…we wanted to give both of those guys an opportunity today, and it just so happened that (Wisniewski) ended up taking the bulk of the reps, but we had them both ready.”

5. Keep ’em in from of you

The Eagles started the game without Ronald Darby, Rodney McLeod and Corey Graham in the secondary.

They won it with a grouping of Malcolm Jenkins, Jalen Mills, Rasul Douglas, Patrick Robinson and Chris Maragos.

It created an interesting wrinkle in defensive scheme, with the Eagles playing soft on the outside and trying to limit Eli Manning’s deep looks. The Giants threw short and they threw it early, taking advantage of that soft coverage underneath and negating the Eagles’ pass rush.

Manning finished with 366 passing yards, but almost everything he threw was within five to 20 yards from the line of scrimmage:

He was 8/8 for 170 yards and two touchdowns in that 10 to 20 yard range. A huge outlier is that 77-yard Sterling Shepard score, which went about 50 yards after the catch.

Douglas spent most of the day matched up on Brandon Marshall, while Mills lined up opposite Odell Beckham, Jr.

They held the Giants in check for the first 45 minutes, keeping those receivers in front of them and off the scoreboard entirely. Manning’s quick release resulted in a bunch of easy catches that the Eagles generally did a good job of containing.

When Manning did decide to go deep, he was picked off by Douglas:

After that, it was bit of up and down for the rookie, who was beat by Shepard on a dropped touchdown pass. In the fourth, he was targeted three times in a row, stuffing Marshall on the first attempt before giving up 12 yards on the next play and whiffing on a tackle after nearly jumping a short route.

He later missed another tackle on the Orleans Darkwa run that set up a fourth quarter score. It was an up and down day for Douglas.

Maragos barely had his name called until he took a bad angle on the Shepard touchdown. Otherwise, the Eagles’ defensive scheme and the New York game plan made him almost a peripheral figure.

6. What is a catch?

Here’s that aforementioned dropped touchdown:

https://twitter.com/nickpiccone/status/912022497964503041

Weird, right? But NFL rules say you have to control the ball while going to ground, which Shepard didn’t do. Credit to Manning for a perfectly thrown pass, and Shepard for getting his feet in, but it didn’t stand because of the bobble on the ground.

The Eagles stuffed a running attempt on the next play and went into halftime with a 7-0 lead.

Later, Beckham, Jr. did this:

Pinning the ball to the left shoulder is all it takes to control the ball.

So you’ve got one guy who snags it with two hands but loses control, and another guy who catches it with one hand but keeps control.

Whatever works, I guess.

7. The inevitability of misfortune

The Eagles won despite:

  • losing Sproles, Fletcher Cox, and Jordan Hicks
  • taking a sack on a 4th and 8
  • missing a field goal
  • a fourth-quarter fumble
  • a dropped touchdown pass

Zach Ertz was responsible for two of those mistakes, one of which he immediately remedied when he caught the very next ball thrown his way. If he doesn’t haul in that touchdown, we’re lambasting him for two critical mistakes.

The Giants weren’t without their share of boneheaded moments either, turning it over twice and bailing out the Birds with some terrible pass interference calls. The Eagles also benefited from an overturned touchdown and a goofy sequence where an offensive lineman was flagged for holding Elijah Qualls and keeping him from leaving the field of play. Truthfully, Qualls probably wasn’t getting off the field anyway, so that was another killer for the G-men.

8. Doug’s worst play call?

It wasn’t the first challenge (the punt that went into the end zone). I think the officials got that one wrong.

The worst call was certainly the 4th and 8 attempt with 2:30 left to play in the second quarter. Wentz took a sack and handed the ball back to the Giants near the 50-yard line:

Yea, Doug is aggressive, blah blah blah, but it’s a dumb call because of the distance. If this was 4th and 5, or 4th and 4 I get it. But why risk a momentum swing like this when you’re playing reasonably well in a one-score game?

Other candidates for worst call of the game are the third and 6 swing pass and the single-read roll out on that fourth quarter drive.

9. Doug’s best play call?

It was definitely the decision to go for it on fourth and short on two different occasions, both of which were part of sustained scoring drives. Contextually, those were much smarter play calls than the 4th and 8, and they ultimately lead to the Birds putting 14 points on the board.

I found it strange that Clement started getting the ball in the fourth quarter, but that touchdown run silenced a lot of confused fans. Would they have had success there with Blount and Smallwood? Probably, but credit to Clement for a hell of a run behind four great blocks. It’s a power left with Hali Vaitai and Jason Peters clearing the way for a pulling Wisniewski and Jason Kelce:

10. The national anthem non-controversy

Players, coaches, and executives got together and linked arms. Some put their fist in the air. It was a polite and respectful display of solidarity to bring continued awareness to social injustice, or maybe just to tell Donald Trump to piss off. Maybe it was both.

Two more random thoughts

Joe Buck started slow but finished strong. He called Darren Sproles “Darien,” mistook Carson Wentz for Eli Manning, and identified Patrick Robinson as Jalen Mills.

And the worst commercial currently in rotation is the one with the guy sitting in Boston (?) traffic blasting “Sweet Caroline” inside of his red Hyundai. It played three times in the first half.

I axed Neil Diamond and made a new version:

https://youtu.be/b224VZsrCa8