Best served cold? Motivated Eagles punish Giants in divisional rematch
Nick Sirianni began the week downplaying any talk of revenge as the Eagles stared down a rematch against the New York Giants just a couple weeks after an embarrassing road loss.
But his players didn’t forget what happened.
“I know he said that, but we’re all competitors,” Zack Baun said. “We all knew what it was, what type of game it was. It’s hard not to use the way we lost last game to help us change our attitude and our mindset for this game.”
Did they do that?
“Oh definitely,” Baun said.
No kidding. The Eagles didn’t just beat the Giants on Sunday at the Linc — they beat them up en route to a 38-20 win with the backups closing it out.
Two weeks ago, the Giants punched the Eagles in the mouth repeatedly in a 34-17 loss at MetLife Stadium and then celebrated it.
That seemingly stuck with the Eagles.
“It’s always great to win. It’s always great to beat a division rival,” Saquon Barkley said. “We definitely saw how they celebrated when they beat us last time. I think one of my favorite things Coach Sirianni says is the revenge mindset, that lasts for 5 minutes and then it goes back to your habits.”
After completely playing down the thought of revenge to start the week, Sirianni did allow on Wednesday that if individual players needed some extra motivation, as long as it didn’t distract them, then they should use it.
It was obvious that plenty of Eagles were motivated by that last loss to the Giants two weeks ago.
“You get your ass kicked and it’s a little motivation to me, personally, and I know to a lot of the guys,” Reed Blankenship said. “It’s good to get, I guess you can call it revenge. But it’s just another opponent on our schedule that we gotta get through. Obviously, it’s great to come out on top.”
The Eagles were able to punish the Giants on both sides of the football on Sunday.
After the loss to the Giants in Week 6, several Eagles defensive players were disappointed to lose in the physicality department. Blankenship said that was an emphasis entering the rematch. The Eagles held the Giants to just 3.2 yards per rushing attempt and sacked Jaxson Dart five times on Sunday.
“I feel like we gave it to them a little bit,” Blankenship said. “I felt like our guys were flying around. Didn’t matter what was going on, just don’t let them into the end zone. I feel like we did a great job of that.”
On offense, the Eagles finally got their run game going on Sunday and rushed for a season-high 276 yards behind a dominant performance from the offensive line and two 100-yard rushers in Barkley and Tank Bigsby.
This game started off with a 65-yard touchdown run from Barkley on the second play from scrimmage.
“We just wanted to be the more physical team today,” left tackle Jordan Mailata said. “It didn’t matter what it looked like. I’m glad we got a touchdown, don’t get me wrong. I’m glad he went 65. That was nice to see. We were just trying to be the more physical team.”
The Eagles did that in every phase on Sunday.
The lack of that physicality is what really stood out about that loss to the Giants a couple weeks ago. For all the talk of identity this season, it shouldn’t be lost that the Eagles’ true identity in 2024 was that they were always the bully.
They got back to that on Sunday.
“There was an understanding that we’re the guys,” linebacker Jihaad Campbell said. “We’re the motherf-ers that people want to beat. So why not go into this game having that chip on our shoulders, having that confidence that nobody can F with us. That was our main thing going into this game. Simple as that. Straight up self-confidence and be self-aware of knowing who we are as a whole collective.”
Best served cold? Motivated Eagles punish Giants in divisional rematch
