In what has become an NFC East tradition, the NY Giants and Philadelphia Eagles battled it out last Sunday night in a messy, mistake riddled, shoot yourself in the foot, last possession contest of who stinks the least. Eight of the last nine meetings between these two franchises have ended up with the Eagles on top- EIGHT OF THE LAST NINE!
That is not good for this franchise.
Yes, we can hang our hat on the fact that during that same time frame, the Giants have won two Super Bowls, and the Eagles have equaled the same amount as they have their entire history as a franchise (zero), but still.
Weather it’s the Pisarcik fumble, Eli sliding short of a first down on the final drive, the DeShawn Jackson nightmare…there seems to be some bizarro curse on these games, resulting in pathetically inept play that only comes out when these two teams meet.
Last Sunday was no exception, highlighted by a phantom pass interference, followed by a downright idiotic pass interference, followed by the predictable self-wound inflicting Andy Reid gift wrapping victory for the Giants by calling a timeout during a rushed and confused winning field goal attempt (I don’t know how the referee heard him through that ridiculous mustache).
As we all know, on the 2nd attempt- with plenty of time- Lawrence Tynes missed a 54 yarder. Of course he did. It was against the Eagles!
On a positive note, it was great to see Ahmad Bradshaw running full-speed forward, instead of pussy-footing around in the backfield like he did against the Cowboys week one. Ramses Barden also looked solid again, before his very offensive pass-interference play, Domenik Hixon looked great, and Giants Offensive line held off a strong Philly pass rush.
I’m not going to say “I told you so,” because the Giants dominated this game and should have won. They did not come in overconfident, and performed better than I had anticipated. But when push came to shove, they had their 4th quarter opportunities and blew them. It’s like some kind of crazy curse of the cheesesteak or something!
– written by Andy Pritikin – Featured Columnist
