PHILADELPHIA — On the near sideline, Philadelphia Eagles Coach Andy Reid raised his arms and wiped his brow. On the far sideline, Giants Coach Tom Coughlin dropped his head and covered his eyes. It was as if neither coach could believe the unlikely finish he had just seen.
Their reactions were surely understandable. Yes, all that matters is the final result — Eagles 19, Giants 17 — but the fourth quarter Sunday night will very likely go down as one of the strangest in the history of this rivalry. It ended with Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes missing a potential game-winning field goal — twice, actually, after Reid called timeout just before the first one — as the Giants failed to steal a victory they momentarily seemed in prime position to seize.
“I think he kicked the second one better, actually,” Giants punter Steve Weatherford, the holder for the kicks, said. “It just wasn’t enough leg.”
Instead it was the Eagles who won, led by quarterback Michael Vick and running back LeSean McCoy, who strutted off Lincoln Financial Field having survived a game that was ugly at the start and frantic at the finish. Vick passed for 241 yards and a touchdown while McCoy rushed for 123 yards to lead the Eagles, who also got four field goals from Alex Henery, including a 26-yarder with just under two minutes remaining that proved to be the difference.
Eli Manning passed for 309 yards and 2 touchdowns — including one to Bear Pascoe that gave the Giant a short-lived lead — but also threw an interception in the end zone to kill a fourth-quarter Giants drive. Manning did bring the Giants down the field after Henery’s final field goal — getting as far as the Eagles’ 26-yard line — but an offensive pass interference penalty on Ramses Barden pushed the Giants back 10 yards and set up Tynes’s miss.
“You like to have the ball and a chance to go win it,” Manning said. “You always want the opportunity. This is why you don’t want to always be in this situation.”
The Giants sank to 2-2 and into a tie with Washington for last in the N.F.C. East, with Dallas set to play Monday night.
“There’s a lot of football left to be played,” Giants defensive end Justin Tuck said.
The win is an early surge for the Eagles (3-1), who — yet again — are expected to contend for the division title. Of course, that was the expectation last season as well, and the pain of last season’s disastrous underachieving has left many Eagles fans (who are certainly familiar with heartache) feeling the heavy weight of skepticism regarding this year’s team.
Not surprisingly, much of the scrutiny has centered on Vick. The shifty quarterback is in his fourth season here but — as just about any Eagles fan would be quick to note — has yet to win a playoff game. There has even been speculation that the Eagles might consider a change at quarterback, a perception that Coach Andy Reid did not help when he told reporters early last week that Vick is his starter “right now” and that the Eagles will “evaluate as we go.”
Reid quickly backtracked from the line, swearing his allegiance to Vick in a subsequent radio interview, but some saw the original sentiment as a telling slip and at the very least it heightened the pressure on Vick coming into a critical rivalry game.
Vick’s defenders would surely point out that many of his problems might be traced to his inability to stay upright for very long, as the Eagles’ offensive line allowed opponents to get 27 hits on Vick in the team’s previous three games. The Giants, whose defensive line is typically a weapon, privately salivated at the opportunity to re-establish its dominance by continuing the trend.
But it did not happen. Instead, the Giants struggled to get consistent pressure in the backfield, Vick stayed on his feet and, during the lone first-half touchdown drive from either team, he scrambled for an important first down that set up a 19-yard touchdown pass to DeSean Jackson.
On that play, the Eagles’ protection was stout; Vick stepped up into a perfectly formed pocket and lofted a floating pass toward the left corner of the end zone where Jackson had left both Antrel Rolle and Corey Webster behind him.
Given the general offensive ineptitude of the first half — the teams combined for nine punts in the opening two quarters — it seemed unlikely that the Giants would be able to equalize before halftime, but Manning, who was on his back far more than Vick as Philadelphia’s wide-nine defense penetrated regularly, did manage a reasonable response.
After completing just seven passes through the first 28 minutes of the game, Manning connected on seven more in the final 1 minute 48 seconds of the first half as the Giants marched 81 yards to the Philadelphia 6-yard line. Manning, who was without one of his top targets since Hakeem Nicks was out with a knee injury, found Domenik Hixon for 32 yards on the first play of the drive. But the Giants stalled near the goal line, and Manning was nearly intercepted on third down before Tynes kicked a field goal with 8 seconds remaining before intermission.
Coughlin appeared frustrated by the inability to get a touchdown as he ran into the locker room, but in the third quarter it was Reid who fumed over a missed opportunity.
This time it was McCoy who could not finish. McCoy drew significant attention in the buildup to the game because of his long-running feud with Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora but the Giants were ultimately more concerned with McCoy’s breakaway ability than his creative insults, which included calling Umenyiora a “ballerina” in an interview with ESPN.
McCoy showed his skills on the opening drive of the third quarter, ripping through the Giants defense for 56 yards on two plays to bring Philadelphia to the Giants’ 1. But three consecutive runs yielded nothing for the Eagles, who settled for a chip-shot kick of their own.
That allowed the Giants to respond again, as Manning rolled down the field on an eight-play drive that was capped with a 14-yard touchdown pass to Victor Cruz. As the crowd booed, Cruz — who emerged as a star with two touchdown catches here last season — went into his familiar salsa routine, celebrating the Giants having drawn level at 10-10.
Their reactions were surely understandable. Yes, all that matters is the final result — Eagles 19, Giants 17 — but the fourth quarter Sunday night will very likely go down as one of the strangest in the history of this rivalry. It ended with Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes missing a potential game-winning field goal — twice, actually, after Reid called timeout just before the first one — as the Giants failed to steal a victory they momentarily seemed in prime position to seize.
“I think he kicked the second one better, actually,” Giants punter Steve Weatherford, the holder for the kicks, said. “It just wasn’t enough leg.”
Instead it was the Eagles who won, led by quarterback Michael Vick and running back LeSean McCoy, who strutted off Lincoln Financial Field having survived a game that was ugly at the start and frantic at the finish. Vick passed for 241 yards and a touchdown while McCoy rushed for 123 yards to lead the Eagles, who also got four field goals from Alex Henery, including a 26-yarder with just under two minutes remaining that proved to be the difference.
Eli Manning passed for 309 yards and 2 touchdowns — including one to Bear Pascoe that gave the Giant a short-lived lead — but also threw an interception in the end zone to kill a fourth-quarter Giants drive. Manning did bring the Giants down the field after Henery’s final field goal — getting as far as the Eagles’ 26-yard line — but an offensive pass interference penalty on Ramses Barden pushed the Giants back 10 yards and set up Tynes’s miss.
“You like to have the ball and a chance to go win it,” Manning said. “You always want the opportunity. This is why you don’t want to always be in this situation.”
The Giants sank to 2-2 and into a tie with Washington for last in the N.F.C. East, with Dallas set to play Monday night.
“There’s a lot of football left to be played,” Giants defensive end Justin Tuck said.
The win is an early surge for the Eagles (3-1), who — yet again — are expected to contend for the division title. Of course, that was the expectation last season as well, and the pain of last season’s disastrous underachieving has left many Eagles fans (who are certainly familiar with heartache) feeling the heavy weight of skepticism regarding this year’s team.
Not surprisingly, much of the scrutiny has centered on Vick. The shifty quarterback is in his fourth season here but — as just about any Eagles fan would be quick to note — has yet to win a playoff game. There has even been speculation that the Eagles might consider a change at quarterback, a perception that Coach Andy Reid did not help when he told reporters early last week that Vick is his starter “right now” and that the Eagles will “evaluate as we go.”
Reid quickly backtracked from the line, swearing his allegiance to Vick in a subsequent radio interview, but some saw the original sentiment as a telling slip and at the very least it heightened the pressure on Vick coming into a critical rivalry game.
Vick’s defenders would surely point out that many of his problems might be traced to his inability to stay upright for very long, as the Eagles’ offensive line allowed opponents to get 27 hits on Vick in the team’s previous three games. The Giants, whose defensive line is typically a weapon, privately salivated at the opportunity to re-establish its dominance by continuing the trend.
But it did not happen. Instead, the Giants struggled to get consistent pressure in the backfield, Vick stayed on his feet and, during the lone first-half touchdown drive from either team, he scrambled for an important first down that set up a 19-yard touchdown pass to DeSean Jackson.
On that play, the Eagles’ protection was stout; Vick stepped up into a perfectly formed pocket and lofted a floating pass toward the left corner of the end zone where Jackson had left both Antrel Rolle and Corey Webster behind him.
Given the general offensive ineptitude of the first half — the teams combined for nine punts in the opening two quarters — it seemed unlikely that the Giants would be able to equalize before halftime, but Manning, who was on his back far more than Vick as Philadelphia’s wide-nine defense penetrated regularly, did manage a reasonable response.
After completing just seven passes through the first 28 minutes of the game, Manning connected on seven more in the final 1 minute 48 seconds of the first half as the Giants marched 81 yards to the Philadelphia 6-yard line. Manning, who was without one of his top targets since Hakeem Nicks was out with a knee injury, found Domenik Hixon for 32 yards on the first play of the drive. But the Giants stalled near the goal line, and Manning was nearly intercepted on third down before Tynes kicked a field goal with 8 seconds remaining before intermission.
Coughlin appeared frustrated by the inability to get a touchdown as he ran into the locker room, but in the third quarter it was Reid who fumed over a missed opportunity.
This time it was McCoy who could not finish. McCoy drew significant attention in the buildup to the game because of his long-running feud with Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora but the Giants were ultimately more concerned with McCoy’s breakaway ability than his creative insults, which included calling Umenyiora a “ballerina” in an interview with ESPN.
McCoy showed his skills on the opening drive of the third quarter, ripping through the Giants defense for 56 yards on two plays to bring Philadelphia to the Giants’ 1. But three consecutive runs yielded nothing for the Eagles, who settled for a chip-shot kick of their own.
That allowed the Giants to respond again, as Manning rolled down the field on an eight-play drive that was capped with a 14-yard touchdown pass to Victor Cruz. As the crowd booed, Cruz — who emerged as a star with two touchdown catches here last season — went into his familiar salsa routine, celebrating the Giants having drawn level at 10-10.