The time we’ve all been waiting for has come. This saturday night, your NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles will play their most important game of the season so far against the New York Football Giants. Fresh off of an “upset” victory versus the Vikings, the Giants look to prove that last week wasn’t a fluke and that Brian Daboll truly is a demi-god when it comes to coaching football teams. As should be understood with any playoff game, the Giants CANNOT be overlooked – which is while we’ll break down these two team’s strengths and weaknesses to ascertain exactly how the Birds can come out of the divisional round with a win.
Giants’ Strengths
Saquon Barkley
When you think of the Giants as a team, the first thing that comes to mind should be Saquon Barkley. He truly has regained the juice he had as a “generational” rookie talent, and has been both figuratively and literally carried this Giants offense to success throughout this season. Elite speed, vision, hands, tackle breaking – you name it, Saquon probably does it at a near elite level. Stopping him in both the rushing and receiving game is absolutely paramount if you want to keep the offense off of the field, because he’s the lifeblood that makes them go.
Pass rush
I sort of jumped the gun with this as a strength earlier in the season, before we even knew how potent this pass rush could be – but unfortunately, they’ve proven me so very right. The interior duo of Leonard Williams and Dexter Lawrence has terrified opposing offenses this year, especially as a pass rushing unit; the interior pressure they’re able to generate is second to none. The same can be said for emerging stars on the edge Kayvon Thibodeax and Azeez Ojulari, who have been uber-productive pass rushers in the second half of the season. The former, especially, is a true game-wrecker – and keeping all four of these studs in check will no doubt be the focus for any offensive game planner facing the Giants.
Coaching
As said before, coaching is why the Giants are where they are right now. Daboll is a mad genius, and the way he extracts wins from a group far inferior when it comes to the talent of the teams they beat is both beautiful and scary to watch. You CANNOT allow Daboll to outcoach you if you want to beat the Giants, so putting pressure on the players to make plays instead of leaving yourself open to get outschemed is crucial.
Eagles’ Strengths
Offense
Top offensive line. Top receiving core. Top Tight end. ELITE, MVP level quarterback. This unit is insane, and we’ve seen it all year. With Hurts back, the sky’s the limit for these guys.
Defense
With 10/11 starters healthy on defense this week, I once again can confidently say that the Birds have one of the best defensive rosters in the NFL. The pass rush unit, led by an absolutely lethal edge unit of superstars Haason Reddick, Josh Sweat and BG have worked alongside an all world nose in Javon Hargrave and other big men including Jordan Davis, Ndamokung Suh, and Linval Joseph to rack up the fourth most sacks in a season in NFL history. The backend is pretty nice too, with Pro Bowl/All Pro level players littering each layer of the secondary (shout out Slay, Bradberry, Edwards, CJGJ, and Reed “sunk your” Blankenship). Combined, this group is truly a marvel to look at on paper.
Giants’ Weaknesses
Passing attack
Daniel Jones had an extremely good game last week against the Vikings, but I’m not about to crown the Giants passing attack as anything better than milquetoast just yet. The Vikings defense is one of the most porous units in the league, and as good as fill-in guys like Isaiah Hodgins have played when compared with expectation, the reality is that this passing offense isn’t very talented. Lacking a true WR1 and operating behind a shaky at best offensive line, I really can’t trust Daniel Jones to sustain any more than exactly what he’s done all season – take what the defense gives him while operating a Giants offense that asks him to do pretty much nothing.
Run defense
As great as this pass rush has been, the run defense has been prone to getting pushed around. With a strong enough commitment to the ground game, you can easily force this defense to add extra men in the box to ensure they don’t get absolutely gashed.
Eagles Weaknesses
Maddox/Gannon
The only true weakness I see when looking at this team is the lack of Avonte Maddox and the potential for a Jonathan Gannon disaster class. Watching this team with and without Maddox is a somewhat jarring experience, as he’s a perfect case study for how important a great slot corner can be to a defense. Without him, the Eagles defense may have to stretch itself somewhat thin to fill his massive shoes. The other potential weakness is Jonathan Gannin becoming too comfortable with this matchup, and making the same mistakes the vikings did last week, allowing Daniel Jones to pick apart soft shell coverages and not force any true tough throws. We’ve seen it before from him.
Keys to Victory
Stay aggressive
This key is exactly the same as the last two times we played the Giants – “The reality is that the Eagles players are better than the Giants players. Getting a lead early and dominating is the key to making sure that you don’t play this game on New York’s terms.”
Don’t be idiotic, Gannon
ALL YEAR we have seen shell coverages and soft zones get absolutely torched by competent offenses. As we’ve seen by the firing of Joe Woods and Ed Donnatell, THEY’VE FIGURED IT OUT, GANNON. Don’t lose this game because of a blind commitment to a clearly faulty scheme. Please.
Score Prediction
This is going to be a tough game. It always is, really, when you have to face an opponent three times. However, I believe in our Eagles to get this done. We’re the better roster. We have Jalen Hurts. That’s all that matters.
Score: 31 – 24 Eagles
GO. BIRDS.
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Noah Berger is a featured writer at The Birds Blitz. For more from Noah, check out his archive and read through our Eagles articles for the latest news about the Birds.
