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Easy Work – 30 Immediate Observations from Eagles 38, Giants 20
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That felt good. Not only did the Eagles get revenge on the Giants for the fugazi loss of two weeks ago, but they didn’t have much trouble at all, comfortably thumping these jamokes by multiple scores to go into the bye week at 6-2.
That’s two wins after two losses and you feel like this Birds team is back on track after a bit of consternation, some legitimate and some not.
Jalen Hurts was once again excellent on the afternoon, this time throwing for 179 yards and four touchdowns while completing 75% of his passes. That was good for a 141.5 QB rating. Saquon Barkley finally had a breakout game despite pulling up late with an injury and A.J. Brown wasn’t required since DeVonta Smith again looked like one of the league’s best receivers. Dallas Goedert caught his 6th and 7th TDs of the season and the defense limited New York to less than 200 yards by the time the fourth quarter was starting. Only a garbage time score against the Eagles’ second stringers made this one look respectable.
The Giants are 2-6 and back into the NFC East basement, where they belong. The Birds owed these jokers a beatdown after the Thursday Night Football debacle and rightfully went belt-to-ass against Big Blue at the Linc.
To the observations we go:
1) Gotta love the refs picking up a flag on the opening kickoff. Get your heads in the game! A portent of what was to come, unfortunately.
2) So good to finally see Saquon Barkley break one off. 65 yards to the house on his first carry.
It shouldn’t be lost on anyone that they ran that play from under center, not out of the shotgun. Lovely blocks from Brett Toth, LANDON DICKERSON, and DeVonta Smith to open up the hole and he’s gone:
3) Love the early screen play to Saquon. Toth and Tyler Steen absolutely clobbered a couple of Giants on that sequence. Looked like prime Jason Kelce out there in the open field clobbering poor defenders.
4) Tom Brady seemed much less annoying on the broadcast. Thought it was one of the better games he’s called, honestly. He’s usually referring to some guy by his first name over and over again, like they’re best friends, but there wasn’t much of that going on at all.
We did, however, get an F bomb:
5) Jake Elliott with a single doink from 58 yards. Tough one, but the Steen false start ended up killing the second drive.
6) One of the worst thing that FOX does is cut to commercial before a play has been explained. In this case, there’s a whistle during the Elliott miss, then we don’t get an explanation of what happened until after the break. It’s such a momentum killer whenever they do this. It breaks up the flow of the game, and the broadcast also.
7) Seemed like Nakobe Dean was held on the first Giants touchdown, but when they showed the back-angle replay he got tripped up on the center’s left foot, and that’s why he went to ground. Not sure the Eagles needed to send pressure at all, since it left Patrick Johnson 1v1 with Cam Skattebo and he got torched. One could argue that Johnson shouldn’t be on the field at all, let alone in pass coverage.
8) The pop pass to Xavier Gipson was a nice wrinkle. He got wrestled down by the helmet on what was almost an illegal tackle, but it’s something different in the arsenal.
9) Three first quarter penalties isn’t good. They’ve been uncharacteristically sloppy with flags this season.
10) Good decision by replay assist to overturn the late hit flag on Brian Burns. We’d be going absolutely nuts if an Eagles player was flagged for doing the same thing to Jaxson Dart. Whether or not Hurts got to the line of gain and the ball was spotted properly is a completely different story.
11) Again with the tush push controversy. It’s on the refs to officiate it properly. That’s not an Eagles problem. And I guess Brian Daboll is just challenging there to make a point? To prove something to someone? They weren’t going to overturn it so whatever he thought he was doing ended up being symbolic.
12) Whatever the Eagles did in allowing Skattebo to score that receiving touchdown, the Giants did it worse on Saquon’s score. They blitzed and had absolutely nobody out there to cover him. Not sure either team needed to blitz in either situation.
13) Horrible seeing the Skattebo injury. You’ve got a young guy having a great rookie year and then that happens. Good on the fans for giving him a standing O while he was being carted off. And the dude is tough as nails, right? He’s dapping up teammates while wearing and air cast. Hope he’s back sooner rather than later.
14) Eagles still very poor on third down. They came into this game with a 34.1% rate, which was 26th in the league, then started 0-4.
15) Thought Reed Blankenship did a good job of not getting flagged on the Theo Johnson drop. He could have jarred that ball loose if it was caught, but held back. It was something he got penalized for in the end zone earlier in the season.
16) Good kick return day for Will Shipley. Starting field position hasn’t been a strength this year, but that was different on Sunday.
17) We don’t spend enough time talking about Barkley’s ability to turn nothing into something. A good example was right before halftime, when he took a pitch, almost dropped it, and skirted by a guy who got into the backfield to gain six yards instead.
18) One gripe with Brady: he’s a “resiliency” guy. You can say the word “resilience” and it’s one fewer syllable while meaning the same exact thing.
19) Thought the Jalen Carter sack was a good example of why sacks don’t always mean much as a standalone statistic. Dart held that ball for an eternity and tried to do way too much before finally being corralled and brought down.
20) Darius Cooper sighting! Good route, flag on the guy filling in for a depleted Giants secondary.
21) Worst play call of the game was probably the Shipley pitch on 2nd and 15. Wasted down. Could have thrown a slant or something short there and got yourself in third-and-manageable. Instead, they had to settle for a field goal.
22) DeVonta Smith rules. Guy always shows up, plays hard, catches everything thrown his way, and doesn’t act like a diva.
23) Credit where it’s due, that was a hell of a catch from Devin Singletary down the sideline. Dean got a hand on it and he still found a way to haul it in.
24) Jalen really loving that spin move, eh? Got him in trouble on the 4th quarter sack.
25) Tank Bigsby! 2nd and 31! Incredible. Howie Roseman does it again!
26) Dallas Goedert with two touchdowns on tight end day. He’s at a career high now and we’re not even halfway through the season. He might score double-digit TDs this year.
27) Once again, ANYTHING that comes off the read and pull tree, and targets a tight end, is a slam dunk, high-percentage Eagles play.
28) Brian Daboll is probably going to kill someone before the season comes to an end.
29) Tank Bigsby I think has to go on the Mount Rushmore of tanks. Would go Tank Bigsby, Tank Abbott, Frank the Tank from Old School, and Gervonta “Tank” Davis.
30) Jahan Dotson with the dagger! Let’s check in with Shaun Morash:
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com