Eagles promise to not let Giants bully them for the second time in three weeks
The Giants physically manhandled the Eagles two weeks ago. Battered them. Humiliated them. Embarrassed them. Beat ‘em up. On both sides of the ball.
The Eagles have lost a handful of games over the last few years, but rarely have we seen them just out-physicalled for 60 minutes by a last-place team. The only other loss in the Nick Sirianni Era to a losing team by 17 or more points was also against the Giants at MetLife during the 2023 collapse.
“I mean, that’s what happens when you go against a team who got juice and is playing with swagger and confidence,” Saquon Barkley said. “When you go against a team that has that passion, that fire, you can get your butt handed to you. You can get it handed to you. That’s the truth.”
The Eagles bounced back from that loss – and a two-game losing streak – to right the ship with a win in Minneapolis Sunday against the Vikings. They face the Giants again on Sunday at the Linc trying not to get swept by their division rival for the first time since 2007.
During most of the Sirianni Era, the Eagles have been the bullies. They’ve been the aggressor. They’ve been the team out-muscling their opponents. So it was weird to see the roles reversed two weeks ago.
Especially by a Giants team that the Eagles had beaten 28 of the last 35 meetings.
“They had a lot of juice,” Jordan Davis said. “They had a lot of great things going for them. And I think they found something in their QB and their running back.
“But at the end of the day, it’s more about how we attack and how we get out there and how we’re ready to play. You know, you can make all types of excuses, but you’ve got to go out there and execute. And we didn’t execute the last time. So just going in with a new mindset, just going to execute. It’s just as simple as that.”
The keys to the Giants’ domination were two rookies – Jaxson Dart, the 22-year-old 1st-round quarterback, who killed the Eagles with his arms and his legs, and running back Cam Skattebo, who hammered the Eagles up the middle for 98 yards and three touchdowns.
They set the tone with their production and physicality, and the Eagles just had no answers.
“I don’t really know why it was like that,” DeJean said. “Just seemed like that was the way we played out there on the field and I think we had a good chance to reset after that game and kind of look back at it and look at how the week went, and talked about it and making sure we don’t put something like that on tape again.
“Because we pride ourselves on being physical and obviously we didn’t do that that game. Sometimes you have games like that. You hate to go back and watch that game and see what we put on tape. We played pretty physical last week, and we need to continue to do that.”
The Eagles’ defense will look different Sunday at the Linc than it did two Thursdays ago in East Rutherford.
Nakobe Dean was still rehabbing his knee injury, and his Georgia teammate Jalen Carter was out with a heel injury. Brandon Graham didn’t play that game either but won’t be making his 2024 debut until after the bye week. Adoree’ Jackson and Azeez Ojulari will also miss the Giants rematch.
They won’t be at full strength, but they’re determined not to let what happened 16 days ago happen again.
“I don’t think anybody was happy with the way we played that night,” DeJean said. “I think we’ve moved on from it also. This is a new week, a new game. I think we’re excited to go up against them again.”
Eagles promise to not let Giants bully them for the second time in three weeks
