Giants Badly Out-Played by Eagles, Fall 20-14: The New York Giants fell to the Philadelphia Eagles 20-14 earlier today at the Meadowlands and the game was not as close as the final score. With the loss, the Giants fell to 11-2 overall and 4-1 in the NFC East. The Eagles improved to 7-5-1 and 1-3 in the NFC East.
The Giants did not score their first offensive points in the game until there were 14 seconds left in the game. The Eagles out-gained the Giants in first downs (24 to 14), third-down efficiency (66% to 27%), total net yards (331 to 211), net yards rushing (144 to 88), net yards passing (144 to 123), and time of possession (34:54 to 25:06). It was an overall butt whipping.
In the first half of the game, the Giants had six offensive possessions. Three of these resulted in three-and-outs. Two drives ended on downs. And the other on a missed 47-yard field goal attempt that was blocked. At the half, offensively, the Giants had only six first downs and 96 yards of total offense.
Defensively, in the first half, the Giants had allowed two scoring drives and 161 yards in six possessions. The Eagles took a 3-0 lead after a 6-play, 29-yard drive that resulted in a 51-yard field goal at the end of the first quarter. Late in the second quarter, Eagles’ HB Brian Westbrook broke off a 30-yard touchdown run, culminating a 10-play, 77-yard drive.
The only Giants’ points of the first half came on special teams when a 32-yard field goal attempt by the Eagles was blocked by DE Justin Tuck and returned by CB Kevin Dockery for a 71-yard touchdown.
At the half, the Giants were fortunate to only be down by three points, 10-7.
The Eagles dominated the time of possession in the second half. The Eagles received the ball to start the third quarter. A 15-play, 54-yard drive resulted in a missed field goal. But the Eagles maintained possession of the ball for over seven minutes on the drive. The Giants only held the ball for just over three minutes before punting after gaining 21 yards. Then the Eagles put together an 11-play, 86-yard, 6-minute drive that resulted in a 40-yard catch-and-run by Westbrook for a touchdown and a 17-7 led early in the fourth quarter.
Trailing by 10 points with just over 13 minutes to play, the Giants drove to Eagles’ 38-yard line, but a 4th-down conversion attempt failed on 4th-and-1 when QB Eli Manning’s pass fell incomplete. It was New York’s third failed 4th-down conversion attempt of the game.
The Eagles then pretty much put the game away with a 14-play, 46-yard drive that not only took another seven minutes off of the clock, but also resulted in a 34-yard field goal to give the Eagles a 20-7 advantage with just over two minutes left to play.
The Giants did drive 70 yards in six plays in the final two minutes to cut the lead to 20-14, but it was too little too late. Incidentally, the touchdown came on a Manning pass to TE Darcy Johnson from one yard out.
The Eagles recovered the ensuing onside kick.
Offensively, Manning finished the game 13-of-27 for 123 yards, 1 touchdown, and 0 interceptions. Leading pass receivers were WR Steve Smith (4 catches for 47 yards), WR Domenik Hixon (3 catches for 30 yards), and WR Amani Toomer (2 catches for 25 yards). Leading rushers were HB Brandon Jacobs (52 yards on 10 carries), HB Derrick Ward (39 yards on 8 carries), and HB Ahmad Bradshaw (9 yards on 5 carries).
Defensively, DE Justin Tuck had the Giants’ sole sack. The Giants did not force a turnover.
“Obviously disappointed that not only we lost the game, we didn’t play very well,” said Head Coach Tom Coughlin after the game. “We have no excuses. We got beat on the field. They had time of possession, they had rushing yards, they had every stat. I thought we got a real good shot in the arm right before the half with the blocked field goal and score, but we were not able to capitalize on it. We didn’t do anything with the ball in the third quarter when we had the wind and they managed to make first downs into the wind and really hold the ball the entire period. As I said, Philadelphia played well today and they played better than we did. We didn’t make enough plays. I was glad to see the drive at the end, which gave us a little bit of a shot in the arm, into the wind, but too little too late.”
“They had our offense figured out today, that is for sure,” said FB Madison Hedgecock. “We have no excuses. In the third quarter we looked up and we had 36 yards rushing. Our rushing yards were suffering because they were stacking us up; stopping our run. We had to rely on the passing game. It was cold and we had a lot of drops but there are still no excuses – we should have made the plays when we had to. We had some opportunities and we didn’t come up with them either. And we didn’t make any big plays at all. Our defense had their hands full with them – and that is every time we play them. You can’t blame them. They shut us down and they shut us out until the end of the game. We had a miraculous play with the blocked field goal touchdown going into halftime. But coming out we didn’t take advantage of the momentum. We have to score points on offense.”
“We didn’t play our style of football and they took advantage of that,” said LB Danny Clark. “We don’t expect anybody to come into our house and run the ball. And yet they got it done against our defense today. They played better than we played today.”
Post-Game Notes: HB Brandon Jacobs (knee) and CB Aaron Ross (ankle) left the game with injuries.
Inactive for the Giants were HB Danny Ware, OT Adam Koets, DE Jerome McDougle, DT Jeremy Clark, DT Leger Douzable, LB Jonathan Goff (hamstring), CB Sam Madison, and PK Lawrence Tynes.