Giants VS Eagles: Postgame

The Giants improved to 8-1 after winning their Sunday night battle against their divisional rival.  It was a great game as Philly hung around all night, not letting the Giants get out of their town without a fight.  In the end with the score 36 -31, the Eagles were able to start a drive with 3 minutes left in the game. Unfortunately the Eagles were out of timeouts due to a couple of failed challenges on questionable calls by the officials.  With no timeouts to set up any kind of drive, they went for a long pass that was intercepted by the Giants.  The Eagles were in luck though as the Giants were called for holding on the play and the interception was taken back.  The Eagles saw their luck fade away when the offense came out of the two minute warning facing a 3rd-3 and failed to convert.  The Giants defense was able to stop Brian Westbrook on 4th and 1 and the Giants were able to come away with another big victory.

The Giants running attack led by Brandon Jacobs and Co. had a big day as they racked up 219 rushing yards on the Eagles defense.  Jacobs led all rushers with 126 yards and two TDs.  Jacobs did commit his first fumble of the year, but more than made up for it with an outstanding performance. Eli played well even though he threw an interception on the first drive of the game.  The rest of the game he was solid and threw for two TD passes.

The Giants defense did just what I said they needed to do in my preview of the game: they shut down Brian Westbrook.  By limiting Westbrook to just 26 yards rushing and not letting him break loose on any passing plays, it proved to be a huge factor in stopping the Eagles offense.  Not that the Eagles didn’t find other ways to score, but by taking Westbrook out of as many plays as the Giants did, they made McNabb look for other, less reliable options. 

Some might say that the Giants got lucky; two plays in the second half were challenged by the Eagles but upheld.  If not for these plays, the Giants might have seen the lead slip away from them.  I do feel that aside from the uncanny amount of turnovers the Giants committed, they did control the tempo of the game.  I mean they possessed the ball for almost 20 more minutes than the Eagles, so I don’t think the Giants got lucky, they just needed to protect the ball better. 

The Giants are looking ahead at the toughest second half schedule in the league; let’s hope they can keep up the good play.  Next week the Giants play Baltimore at home and then go on the road to take on Arizona and Washington.

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Last post (s) by Adam Provost

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