Lincoln Financial Field was shaking that night. Maybe the most critical play in the game. “They’re going to be fired up”. Last season, this exact game was likened to a Walking Dead episode because of how badly the Giants preformed.
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While many Eagles fans watched between the cracks in their fingers covering their faces, the unstoppable Big Blue force faced a 1st-and-10 from the Eagles’ 22-yard-line with 5:47 remaining the first quarter.
Or as Kelly was asked Monday night, how far has he gone on the developmental continuum? “I wish I knew”, he said.
“Honestly, I think it was just part of me just having poor football IQ and not being aware of the rules of dumping him, because I dumped him. We all need to improve on the offensive side of the ball”.
“We’re just all executing better”. Now, after Monday night’s performance, it’s hard to question anything in Philadelphia. The Giants (3-3) had won three in a row after they also started 0-2. “Right now, we’re getting turnovers at a high rate and the points are down”. The Cowboys are 2-3 overall, but are still in this, barely. Murray and the Eagles seem to have put the friction about play-calling that cropped up earlier this year behind them.
The Eagles used two tight ends on DeMarco Murray’s 12-yard touchdown run, on which Murray only had to stiff-arm an overmatched safety to score.
“We’re excited to play Dallas, because we owe Dallas”, guard Justin Pugh said, via ESPN. “We hit Miles [Austin] on a nice seam route”. And through six games, it’s a very shaky argument that Philadelphia has found its. Eli Manning’s first pick was on Larry Donnell, but the second that Nolan Carroll returned for a touchdown was terrible.
Even in victory, Bradford certainly didn’t do himself any favors against the Giants.
A roughing-the-passer penalty on Damontre Moore helped the Eagles avoid another three-and-out and Bradford hit Cooper on a deep pass to tie it at 7-7. Another pick thrown in Ertz’s direction was well short at the goal line, eliminating any opportunity for it to even be a 50-50 ball. When the dust settled, Bradford’s rough Game 6 left his touchdown-to-interception totals at nine to nine.
RUNNING UP-TEMPO: The Giants came out playing Kelly’s style of football, running a no-huddle offense. But that doesn’t change what he is right not: mercurial at best. And that, to Kelly, shows that the offense is close to being dynamic.
None of which addresses why Bradford turning it around is so important for both himself and the franchise.
Inserting as many as five different cornerbacks into the game depending on the coverage concepts required, Davis dialed up a dizzying array of looks to confuse Manning, and he did so safely because Philly’s defensive front and linebackers absolutely clowned Big Blue’s overmatched offensive line.
THE PLAY that turned the game looked really improbable, like, “How’d he do that?” to the naked eye. Which likely means they aren’t reading the defensive coverages correctly and adjusting their pattern. “They do a great job of managing it and keeping me as healthy as possible so I trust them and follow what they say”. Besides, given that they gave us a ton of Han Solo and Chewbacca, as well as a Leia shot, they have to hold something back.
That kind of vision is reserved for legitimate Super Bowl contenders like the New England Patriots, Green Bay Packers and Denver Broncos. It’s good to have a 100-yard rusher like we did, but we had pre-snap penalties, I had the bad snap, there are still a lot of mistakes that fortunately, the defense is playing really well and keeping us in games.
“We take it on a weekly basis”, Kelly said at his news conference on Tuesday. “We have to clean that up”.
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The Giants can be good and would have been the East favorites had they won in Philadelphia. It probably has to win all the rest of its division games, starting with its rematch against the Dallas Cowboys on the road on November. 8. It was done in spite of the quarterback. And that’s not how any of this was supposed to have been built in Philadelphia.
