The Philadelphia Eagles are 4-2 after beating the New York Giants!
That’s two wins in a row for the first time since the Birds beat the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills in back-to-back weeks last November. It was the Eagles’ first win by more than one possession since October 22, 2023 and their first win by more than three possessions since January 21, 2023. Nice for fans to see a comfortable win for once. And to the point where starters were able to leave the game early!
Time to hand out some winners, losers, and IDKs.
WINNERS
SAQUON BARKLEY
Barkley has downplayed the “revenge” angle but you know this performance against his former team had to feel especially good.
Barkley took 17 carries for 176 yards (an absurd 10.4 average) and one touchdown. He easily would’ve topped his career-high of 189 yards had the Eagles decided not to pull him from the game in the fourth quarter. On that note, Nick Sirianni credited Barkley for being unselfish by not chasing his record and instead allowing Kenny Gainwell and Will Shipley to get some production to finish out the game.
Barkley was simply sensational. He ran hard, fighting through contact and flat out trucking some Giants defenders. He was elusive, making players miss. He clearly gained much more yardage than what was simply blocked for him:
Barkley’s three biggest runs went for 55, 41, and 38 yards. All of those took place on drives where the Eagles ended up in the end zone; these are hardly empty stats. Some more context to properly appreciate his explosive ability:
As I said all along, the Eagles signing Barkley was a great move. Gotta keep feeding him until teams prove they can stop him!
JEFF STOUTLAND
I’m looping in the Eagles’ offensive line (more specifically as run blockers) with the team’s run game coordinator here. Barkley did the heavy lifting but he certainly had some help from his teammates and coaching. The Eagles running 45 times for 269 yards (6.0 average) and three touchdowns is a good day at the office for everyone involved in this facet. It was the Eagles’ highest rushing total in a game since they dropped 363 on the Green Bay Packers on November 27, 2022.
A.J. BROWN
Another week, another tough over-the-shoulder grab for a big play down the field. This one coming at a crucial time to give the Eagles a 14 to 0 lead instead of turning the ball over at 4th-and-3 from the plus 41-yard line.
As if that wasn’t good enough, Brown’s four other catches all went for first downs.
All told, his five targets resulted in five catches for 89 yards (17.8 average) and one score. Incredibly efficient.
NICK SIRIANNI
For the first time since Week 1, Sirianni isn’t a huge talking point coming out of an Eagles game. That’s gotta be a relief for the head coach.
Sirianni deserves to be dinged for yet another slow start. It’s pretty ridiculous how the Eagles have now gone eight straight games without scoring in the first quarter.
But the positive outweighed the negative here. A few things that specifically stood out:
- The offensive approach made sense. The Eagles entered this game without their starting left tackle and they quickly lost their starting right guard. They knew they were going up against the NFL’s top pass rush in terms of sacks per game. They also knew they were going up against a defense that was allowing the second-most yards per rush attempt. So, they did what made the most sense: running the ball! No need to overthink it.
- Aggression made a difference. Whereas Brian Daboll punted from 4th-and-3 at the plus 45-yard line, Sirianni went for it at 4th-and-3 from the plus 41-yard line. Fortune favored the bold with Hurts hitting Brown downfield for the touchdown that gave the Eagles a 14 to 0 lead. Sirianni gave his team an edge.
- The vibes have stabilized. Things felt pretty weird after last week’s win against the Cleveland Browns! Sirianni did himself no favors with his crowd interaction and a bizarre postgame presser. But Eagles players maintained their support for Sirianni with their words … and then backed him further with their actions in a comfortable win.
This effort did not erase all concerns. But, as I discussed with Sheil Kapadia on The Ringer’s Philly Special postgame podcast, this performance did help to take the temperature down.
VIC FANGIO
The Eagles’ defense has allowed just 12 points over the last two weeks. Four field goals, zero touchdowns. Pretty good!
It’s certainly helped that the Eagles have played bad quarterbacks and thus bad offenses. Not to mention that the Giants were seriously missing starting left tackle Andrew Thomas in this game.
But Fangio’s unit still deserves credit for dominating inferior competition. The Eagles generated eight sacks, 10 TFLs, 11 quarterback hits, and four passes defensed.
NAKOBE DEAN
Dean filled up the stat sheet with a team-high 11 total tackles, two sacks, two TFLs, and four quarterback hits. It’s nothing we haven’t said before but he’s really good at operating downhill, both as a run defender and blitzer. The Eagles should try to play up to those strengths as much as possible and hope they can survive when he has to drop into coverage.
JALEN CARTER
It’s easier to live with two bad pre-snap penalties when Carter is also notching two sacks and two TFLs. This was Carter’s first game with two sacks since Week 5 last season.
With his first sack of the season coming against the Browns last weekend, Carter is up to three sacks this year.
BRYCE HUFF
Huff had his most encouraging game yet. Good to see him notch his first full sack in an Eagles uniform after picking up half a sack last Sunday. In addition to that takedown, he generated multiple pressures by forcing Daniel Jones to step up in the pocket; Dean logged one of his two sacks in one such instance. Perhaps the light is finally going on for Huff after a slow start to the season? I’ve seen some push-back that he only played well because the Giants’ offensive line isn’t good. While that’s not untrue, right tackle Jermaine Eluemunor has played relatively well for New York this season. The veteran entered the game ranked 31st in pass blocking out of 79 tackles graded by Pro Football Focus this season. And that’s who Huff was beating.
DARIUS SLAY
Slay led the Eagles in passes defensed with two, including one on third down to force a Giants punt on their first drive after halftime. Slay contributed to the Eagles limiting rookie standout Malik Nabers to his worst game in the NFL thus far.
QUINYON MITCHELL
Mitchell also helped to shut down Nabers. He flat out bullied him at the bottom of the screen on this rep:
Mitchell had a chance to pick off Jones on a deep target to Nabers but the rookie cornerback couldn’t make the over-the-shoulder grab. He’s going to get his first interception sooner than later.
JOSH SWEAT
After going ice cold in the season half of last season, Sweat had seemingly rediscovered his groove. Sweat has one sack and one TFL in each of the Eagles’ last three games. It sure didn’t hurt that he was facing the Giants’ awful backup left tackle. Still, he took advantage.
NOLAN SMITH
Smith also took advantage of the Giants’ backup left tackle for his second sack this season and just the third of his career. Smith also had two TFLs. Maybe things are finally starting to click for him as well?
COOPER DEJEAN
DeJean didn’t look out of place defensively and he had good punt return production with three tries for 45 yards. His long of 28 featured him making defenders miss AND breaking through tackles in a way that you don’t always seem from a punt returner.
KENNY GAINWELL
Gainwell had his third-highest career rushing output with 56 yards on 13 carries. He also had one catch for 11 yards. Gainwell ran well as the RB2 behind Barkley.
Fun fact: Three of Gainwell’s four highest rushing totals have taken place at MetLife. Two against the Giants, one against the New York Jets.
JALYX HUNT
Playing in garbage time, Hunt logged his first career sack. And it was a strip-sack! As an inexperienced developmental edge rusher, extra reps seem especially valuable for Hunt. Nice luxury for the Eagles to be able to get him involved in this spot.
SYDNEY BROWN
Brown played in his first game since tearing his ACL at MetLife Stadium earlier this year. He broke up a pass in garbage time that forced a Giants punt. Good confidence boost.
BEN VANSUMEREN
Kinda fun that the Eagles have a linebacker who serves as their fullback. And can actually lead block! BVS contributed to some of Barkley’s successful runs.
Interested to see how it goes when the Eagles inevitably give him the ball at some point. It’ll probably either be really awesome or a total disaster.
MEKHI BECTON
Why is Becton a winner from a game where he didn’t play much due to suffering a concussion?
Well, it seemed like a positive sign that Becton was able to greet his teammates as they entered the locker room. Maybe he’ll be able to play in Week 8.
Beyond that, though, it’s clear that Becton was not thrilled about returning to MetLife. Though he didn’t play for the Giants, I still feel like this trip served as his own revenge game and helped him exorcise his demons from playing in that building for the Jets.
I’m also sure that Becton isn’t too torn up about the Jets dropping to 2-5 on Sunday night.
JACK STOLL
Speaking of revenge games, Stoll just took part in a win over the team that fired him in August. Probably feels nice!
LOSERS
JOHN MARA
Who could forget this line from the Giants’ co-owner when his team was featured on the offseason edition of Hard Knocks earlier this year:
“I’ll have a tough time sleeping if Saquon goes to Philadelphia, I’ll tell you that.”
Safe to say Mara won’t be resting easy tonight.
JOE SCHOEN
Remember when the Tennessee Titans fired Jon Robinson shortly after A.J. Brown torched his former team in 2022?
Schoen’s days as the Giants’ general manager could be numbered.
GIANTS FANS
Headline over at Big Blue View, referring to Giants fans burning Barkley jerseys in the tailgate lots outside MetLife:
Damn.
But, wait, there’s more:
Sunday, honestly, was as embarrassing as you could possibly imagine for the Giants as a franchise.
That’s really too bad for them.
I DON’T KNOWS
JALEN HURTS
Let’s start with the biggest positive: Hurts did not put the ball in harm’s way for the second game in a row. That’s big. There’s more and more reason to believe he might be putting his turnover issues behind him.
Hurts put up pretty efficient box score stats: 10/14 (71.4% completion), 114 yards (8.1 average), 1 TD, 0 INT, 119.3 passer rating … 7 carries, 22 yards, 2 TD.
Of course, those numbers don’t tell the whole story. Hurts did take four sacks, which happened in part due to him holding onto the ball too long. Some of Hurts’ worst plays weren’t reflected in the stat sheet. There were two moments that really stood out in terms of Hurts not seeing the field well. The first was when he had a crossing DeVonta Smith wide open for a first down in his field of vision and yet he recognized it too late, having to throw the ball away. The second was when he had Saquon TOTALLY UNCOVERED from the start of the play for what should’ve been an easy touchdown throw but he somehow didn’t see him.
To his credit, Hurts immediately rebounded from each of those mistakes. He followed up his DeVonta miss with a dime of a deep throw to Brown on 4th-and-3 for his sole touchdown pass. He followed up his Saquon miss with a four-yard gain to convert 4th-and-2 and set up 1st-and-goal at the 1-yard line. But while the Eagles had ample margin for error against the lowly Giants, Hurts is probably going to need to be sharper against tougher competition. And he’s undoubtedly going to have to carry more of workload with his arm.
The Eagles didn’t need him to do that much in this game and that’s OK. I promise I’m not trying to crush him. He did make some pretty important plays, such as the ones previously mentioned … and the Eagles’ sole third down conversion on 13 tries when he broke through a blitzer’s arm tackle and took off running to convert a 3rd-and-7. That run contributed to the Birds’ final touchdown, which came on a pretty badass drive by the offense to go 92 yards in 10 plays to take 6:07 off the clock without needing a completion.
But I don’t know how I’m feeling when it comes to this passing offense. That unit should be more productive and cohesive than they’ve been. And Hurts obviously plays a major role in the equation.
I suspect the Eagles will need much more passing volume to beat Joe Burrow’s Cincinnati Bengals in Week 8.
FRED JOHNSON
Credit to Fred Johnson for his contributions to the Eagles’ rushing success but he’s clearly had issues in pass protection. I don’t know that I feel great about him starting at left tackle with the likes of Trey Hendrickson, Josh Hines-Allen, and Micah Parsons coming up before Jordan Mailata is eligible to return from injured reserve. I wonder if the Eagles will consider starting Becton (assuming he’s healthy enough to play) at left tackle and putting Tyler Steen at right guard. I think that combination could very well be the Eagles’ best starting five.
