The Philadelphia Eagles abused the New York Giants in a humiliating 27-0 shutout win over a division rival. Eli Manning was crushed by never ending sacks, Victor Cruz is now probably out for the season with an injury while Nick Foles continues to look shaky and LeSean McCoy had his best game of the season.
The Giants headed into the game looking like one of the more complete teams in the NFL backed by a three-game winning streak. But all the talk of an offensive line getting better, fixing the running game and Eli Manning not making mistakes any more blew up in their face. They’re not Washington Redskins bad, but at 3-3 while the Eagles and Cowboys are making themselves a very nice start to this season, things aren’t looking that great.
Manning was held to just 13-of-23 for 151 yards. He didn’t throw any interceptions, but he hardly had time to throw at all. He was sacked six times and was under duress on 15 of his 31 dropbacks, which is the second-highest ratio for quarterback pressure this season. He fumbled the ball on one of those sacks and the Giants totaled a pathetic four yards on those dropbacks, finishing the game with 85 yards on the ground without Rashad Jennings playing.
At one point Manning was taken out of the game so Ryan Nassib could take the beating instead. He was sacked two more times as well, but Tom Coughlin preferred seeing his backup quarterback getting pummeled behind an offensive line that couldn’t slow down anything. Nassib completed 4-of-5 passes for 60 yards, but things couldn’t have been much worse for the Giants’ offense, finishing with a total of just 253 yards.
The Eagles are still not getting what they expected from Nick Foles compared to his very accurate 2013 season. He threw two interceptions (which the Giants still couldn’t take advantage of) which already makes it seven for him this season, doubling his career number. He also threw two touchdown passes to Zach Ertz and James Casey but most of the offensive work was done by LeSean McCoy who was having a frustrating season up to this point.
McCoy, the leading rusher in the NFL last season, finished the game with 149 yards on 22 carries, his first 100 rushing yards game of the season, and beating his previous season high by 68 yards. He had 112 of those yards coming from outside the tackles and got help from Darren Sproles, coming away with 39 yards on 7 carries and scoring a touchdown and also helping out with 57 yards on four punt returns.
So now the Giants are back in a mode in which they’re trying to figure out what’s wrong, but they’ll have to do it without Victor Cruz. It came from an attempt to stay alive in the game – down by 20 points, they went for it on fourth and goal on the Eagles’ 3-yard line. Cruz went up for a Manning pass but his leg got twisted. He couldn’t hang to the ball. Instead he grabbed his knee. It looked bad before any diagnosis was released.
The Giants now don’t just have to recover from a very tough loss and fix more offensive line issues, but they need to find a way and make up for one of the most productive wide receivers in the NFL over the last three seasons and a bit, leading all slot receivers with 19 touchdowns since 2011 and being in the top 5 of receiving yards among all wide receivers since that year.