Nobody wanted or needed more of that game, but we were gifted with overtime anyway.

Gotta be honest with you; I had 75% of this story written at halftime. The original title was “Burn it to the Ground,” with an opening paragraph explaining how the 2019 Eagles have been an absolutely exhausting team to watch, to talk about, and write about since the first half of week one. Monday night’s stinker looked to be the cherry on top, and then… guys started making plays.

J.J. Arcega-Whiteside made a huge grab. Sidney Jones broke up a third down pass. Carson Wentz and Boston Scott started rocking and rolling. The Birds, down to one wide receiver and using a patchwork personnel group that resembled the practice squad, ripped off 20 unanswered points to hand Eli Manning his 21st career regular season loss to Philadelphia.

They’ve got life, the Eagles. It wasn’t a win that makes you feel amazing about their chances moving forward, but they’re still alive with a division title in play, and that’s a hell of a lot better than falling to 5-8 after a home loss to a 2-10 Giants team. I can’t even imagine what that situation would have been like, but I’m glad we don’t have to experience it.

1. Carson Wentz, clutch quarterback?

He did what everybody was waiting for him to do. He put the team on his back and willed them to victory, despite the fact that Alshon Jeffery and Lane Johnson left the game and didn’t return. The excuses were ready to be applied, but they remain unused this morning, since Wentz was able to get the job done with Zach Ertz and a committee of other dudes that made it feel like I was watching a preseason game.

In the fourth quarter and overtime, Wentz went 17 for 24 while hitting the game-tying and game-winning touchdowns. He was 16 for 26 before that and while he was making a few plays here and there, the Birds just weren’t consistent enough to start putting together any legitimate drives.

Said Wentz of the turnaround:

“It’s huge for us. Obviously we realized it was a sloppy game for a while, but the way guys just hung tough and stayed together more importantly. Obviously, we dealt with some injuries and some other guys stepping up and making plays and that was huge. You’ve got [TE Joshua Perkins], you’ve got Ward, you’ve got J.J., Big V is out there. You’ve got guys all over the field, Boston Scott. Guys stepping up and making plays. I think that’s huge for each of those individual’s confidence and ours as an offense and as a team and each of those guys are going to keep making plays and that’s big for us.”

No interceptions on the evening, and his fumble came on a 4th and 1 plunge that they didn’t execute, so it’s hard to kill him for that. This wasn’t his typical “didn’t see the defensive end coming” type of fumble, it was a pile of bodies on a designed carry.

Here’s his chart from a game-winning night:

This should quiet down the Wentz talk for at least one week, and we all really could use a break from that.

2. Boston Scott, the X-Factor

10 carries for 59 yards and a touchdown.

Six receptions for 69 yards.

Really, the offense finally started clicking on the drive where they kept feeding him the ball, leading to the two-yard touchdown run. Miles Sanders actually began that drive with two carries, came out injured, and Scott touched the ball five times on the next eight plays. Sometimes you just have to feed the beast, even when the beast is 5’7″.

I thought this was a nice quote from Brandon Brooks on Scott:

“One thing I’ve watched from Scott is he’s always a hundred miles an hour. He learned that from Darren Sproles. I can say about Darren Sproles is that there will never be another Darren Sproles, but he tries to hit the middle with as much as he can. When he gets the opportunity he always makes the most of it. I’m not shocked at all that Boston went out there and showed the world what he can do. I’m happy for him. I’m excited for him. Hopefully going forward he gets more touches.”

It’s true, he does look like Sproles out there. Short, shifty, still-nascent dynamic playmaking possibilities when he gets the ball in space. Some of those screens went for chunky gains and I really liked his ability just go north/south in the running game, which you’d think somebody of his stature would not do.

Good for him, for real. He looked like he really wanted it and he was a big reason for the win.

3. Bracketing nobody

Seth Joyner was talking about this play on Twitter, the second Giants touchdown pass when Darius Slayton just ran right past two Eagles defensive backs for a touchdown.

Watch it again:

That was pretty ugly in real time.

Said Joyner:

“Bracket coverage expecting the WR to run a route to get a 1st down! The way you beat a bracket coverage is to run a go route and split the coverage! Should’ve had Darby in press with McCleod over the top!! Bad coaching and even worse play by players!!!”

They actually put a bunch of guys near the line but only rush four, dropping Malcolm Jenkins and others into zone, which looks like this at the start of the play:

It just feels a little strange, schematically, sitting two guys almost 10 yards back of one receiver with a single-high safety who is going to naturally trend over to the strong side, where only one corner is on the line of scrimmage and a strong safety is dropping into coverage. They got cooked on that play and the wide-angle, all-22 version of that will be worth a look.

4. Playing all over the place

Zach Ertz was lined up as a receiver at times on Monday night, simply for the fact that nobody else was available. The Eagles went into the game with three wideouts and lost two of them, so Ertz had to slide around and just use his knowledge of the offense to make it work:

“I think [I played] every spot at the skill position besides running back. I don’t think I’ll ever line up there, but I’ve been in this offense for four years now and I take a lot of pride in being able to help the guys line up. Today, we just had to find a way and obviously with three receivers and losing Alshon early, it was tough, but Greg Ward, J.J, Josh Perkins, Boston Scott, those are the guys that allowed us to be in this situation and make plays at the end of the game. Those guys are freakin’ studs and I’m so proud of all of them.”

Why was he so wide open on the game winning touchdown?

Ertz:

“I don’t know exactly. It was Cover-Zero and I don’t know if the pre-snap shift kind of messed them up or what not, but once I saw the guys’ eyes, he wasn’t really locked in on me. Right when I saw that, I knew that Carson was going to find me and we were going to be walking off.”

Nine catches for 92 yards and 2 touchdowns, aka a massive performance for Ertz after last week putting up just 24 yards on three catches. They needed a big game from him and got a big game.

5. Zach YAC

A second Ertz topic:

Why didn’t he run for more yards after the sideline catch in the second quarter?

Coggin’s take:

I disagree with the Coggin Toboggan’s observation.

Here’s why:

Ertz has to stoop and wait for the ball there, while Deone Bucannon is on a straight-line, with momentum, to bring him down from behind. Knowing he can’t push off and create much separation there, Ertz is just going to try to let the defender pass instead, get his feet underneath him, and try to do something in space. He falls down anyway, so go figure, but I seriously think you’re only looking at like 2-4 YAC yards if he tried to just go straight forward there. He’s very unlikely to break that tackle, since the guy is tracking him from behind.

From the front angle, you can see how much he had to crouch down, and how quickly the defender closed the gap:

Looked very weird in live action, and especially on the replay angle, but Ertz is slow to begin with and has no momentum on the play, so he tries to juke and let the defender pass instead, then falls down.

6. Mistakes and breaks

Typical assortment of errors here.

Mistakes:

  • Jason Peters false start on 3rd down and 8 during first drive
  • Ronald Darby missed tackle on the Slayton touchdown
  • Wentz not running for the first down on that 2nd and 1 scramble play
  • Dallas Goedert drop
  • Ertz red zone false start
  • Jay Ajayi drop
  • missed field goal
  • Greg Ward drop

Breaks:

  • some stinky second half Eli Manning play
  • illegal contact penalty on 3rd down to move the chains
  • deflected Wentz pass going straight up in the air, but no interception

The Giants didn’t make a ton of mistakes; they just couldn’t move the ball at all in the second half. The beat the Birds downfield twice, then didn’t do much at all after that.

7. Ancillary wins and losses

They looked more like themselves across the board:

  • won time of possession 42:51 to 21:59
  • -1 turnover margin
  • 9-21 on third down (42.8%)
  • 1-2 on fourth down
  • allowed Giants to go 2-12 on third down (16.6%)
  • lost 25 yards on 3 sacks
  • 3-4 success rate in the red zone
  • 4 penalties for 30 yards
  • 27 first downs, 11 for New York
  • ran 85 total plays, New York 52

Those time of possession and total play disparities are huge. New York couldn’t move the chains at all on third down (just 16%), and those frequent stops from the defense really helped the offense stay on the field, find a rhythm, and start moving the ball. They absolutely crushed the Giants in TOP and I think that wore down their defense by the time the fourth quarter rolled around.

8. Doug’s best call?

Gimme that 3rd and 1 quarterback sneak all day long. I’ll take the 4th and 1 QB sneaks as well, even if the first one didn’t move the sticks. It’s aggressive Doug, the same Pederson that won a Super Bowl.

The screen passes in the fourth quarter were all nice plays, but I liked the short toss to Scott in overtime and wanted it to put it in the story:

Pre-snap motion, quick pitch to the vacated weak side, pull a couple of linemen for blocks. The design was fantastic, and they even caught the Giants in a corner blitz from the strong side, so it was the perfect counter for what New York was scheming on that play.

Check it out:

Big gain there to help get them into the red zone for the game-winning touchdown.

9. Doug’s worst call?

Before halftime, again, just take a knee and get off the field. Not sure why they tried throwing there.

On the pass interference review, watching that live I thought the ball was tipped by Greg Ward, which would negate DPI. Not sure the Eagles saw that in the booth, but the officials ended up staying with the call on the field for that reason and the Eagles lost a timeout.

10. Booger and Tess

It’s not a fantastic broadcast, and it ended with Joe Tessitore yelling “Eat that W, Philly,” which won’t go down as the greatest call of all time.

And then you’ve got Booger McFarland, who is the master of the obvious. “You have to tackle him” when talking about the Ronald Darby whiff isn’t exactly groundbreaking commentary. He’s decent when he leans on the knowledge from his playing days, and I appreciate his honesty in calling out the Eagles during the first half, so somebody at ESPN has to get with him and say, ‘hey, listen, this is where you are at your best, keep doing it.’

Couple of flubs for both guys, which happens to every broadcaster. The best one was Booger calling the Linc “Lincoln Stadium,” which is a new one. I don’t want to kill the guy, because he already takes enough shit as it is. Him and Tessitore could benefit from a third guy in the booth not named Jason Witten, just to share some of the burden and help the flow of the broadcast. ESPN kind of bungled that whole thing last year.

But that’s all I’ve got on short turnaround this morning. Like the Bee Gees, the Eagles are Stayin’ Alive: