The Eagles got lucky on wild-card weekend. They watched an overrated Giants team beat a mirage in Minnesota.
That, plus Seattle’s inevitable loss at San Francisco — I mean, Geno Smith — sends the Giants to Lincoln Financial Field at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday. This will be a low-stress exercise to prepare the Eagles for the NFC championship game a week later. Yes, any given Sunday, and it’s the NFL, yada, yada, yada.
The Eagles have a nine-game home winning streak against the Giants that spans three head coaches. This divisional playoff game will be little more than a glorified practice, even if Jalen Hurts still hurts.
The good news is that Hurts, who is still nursing a sprained shoulder suffered a month ago, won’t have to face Micah Parsons and Trevon Diggs with a limited Lane Johnson playing right tackle.
They’ll spend this week throwing bouquets of BS at the G-men, and they’ll swear that facing either Dak Prescott or the G.O.A.T. would have suited them fine, but you’d be foolish to think the Eagles aren’t relieved that the weekend rendered Monday night’s Cowboys-Buccaneers result meaningless.
So, if you wanted the Eagles to make it to Super Bowl LVII, then you’ve got to love the outcome. I did, and I’m not even a fan. But then, who wouldn’t prefer Phoenix to Philly in February?
Dangerous
If the wild-card weekend’s games had gone to chalk, and if the No. 6 seed Giants had lost to Kirk Cousins (yeah, almost impossible, but still), then the Eagles would have waited to see which of the two most dangerous teams in the conference they’d face — and yes, that includes the 49ers and their borrowed-time quarterback.
Dallas would have arrived having won seven of its last nine games. One of those losses came at Jacksonville, which won the AFC South and then won a playoff game, so, not a bad loss. The Cowboys also would have beaten Tom Brady, the best postseason quarterback in history, and the latest stout defense engineered by Todd Bowles, the Buccaneers’ head coach.
Tampa Bay, which went just 8-9 in the regular season and won a putrid NFC South, nonetheless would arrive having beaten the Boys. Also, in last year’s wild-card round, Brady and Bowles — then the defensive coordinator — combined to demolish the Eagles. They took a 31-0 lead into the fourth quarter. Yes, the Eagles are improved, but the offensive and defensive schemes will hold little mystery for masters like B&B.
The Giants? They’re a much more inviting opponent. They went 2-5-1 in their last eight games. They eked out a win Sunday against a 13-win fraud that carried a minus-3 point differential into the playoffs. They’ll be playing on a short week, with the Eagles coming off a bye. Granted, that’s a disadvantage that Dallas and Tampa Bay also would have borne, but both of them are playoff-seasoned squads.
Finally, with Hurts healthy in Week 14, the Eagles beat the Giants, 48-22, at MetLife Stadium, and led by 34 points until the last minute. And this one’s at the Linc, one of the tougher places to play in football.
That’s a big reason why the Birds haven’t lost at home to the Giants since 2013. In that game, Michael Vick reinjured his hamstring and Matt Barkley replaced him and fumbled twice on his first series, the second time at the Giants’ 2. Josh Brown kicked five straight field goals in a 15-7 win. Only Najee Goode’s scoop-and-score kept it from being a shutout. The Eagles’ average margin of victory vs. the Giants in this run is almost eight points.
Next.
Down the road
Meanwhile, on the West Coast, the Seahawks actually gave the 49ers a game through three quarters. More importantly, they supplied a clearer blueprint for success against a team that has survived the growing pains of seventh-round rookie quarterback Brock Purdy.
Yes, he collected his seventh straight win and threw four TD passes, but he nearly threw an interception on the first playoff pass of his career, underthrew another deep ball later, and didn’t really produce until Kyle Shanahan altered the game plan and deleted deep-ball calls.
Don’t think the 49ers exited the weekend happy, at all. Both the Cowboys and Buccaneers presented a bigger problem for the 49ers than the Vikings would have, assuming — and I’m not — the 49ers win their divisional playoff game. If they do, a week later, a tough game for the 49ers on Sunday will benefit the Birds.
Another ancillary benefit: If the 49ers do lose, just having played them will be the kiss of death for the survivor.
Opponents are 0-15 the week after playing the 49ers.
Long-term effects
At any rate, the Eagles are assured at least one more season of Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy. Jerry Jones already promised that McCarthy won’t get fired. He has two more years on his deal. Hell, knowing Jerry, McCarthy might even get a contract extension.
Mike McCarthy in your conference, much less your division? That’s the gift that just keeps on giving.
Similarly, quarterback Daniel Jones’ performance Sunday virtually assured his expensive return to the Giants. After all, the biggest reason first-year coach Brian Daboll is a coach of the year candidate is because he saved Jones’ career. Now Jones, still deeply flawed, will be a $150 million liability for the foreseeable future.
And, the Commanders? The team without a quarterback? The team with a coach who didn’t know his club’s playoff standing? The team whose owner, Daniel Snyder, currently is the subject of two government investigations and is being encouraged by his peers to sell the team? Yes, please.
The NFC East is a circus, and, thanks in part to events of the last 72 hours, the Eagles could be its ringmaster for the next decade.
A final bonus: As an appetizer to Saturday night’s massacre, Philadelphians get to witness former Eagles coaches Andy Reid and Doug Pederson in their second acts, as Reid’s Chiefs host the Jaguars.
The weakest possible team is coming for a playoff game. The division remains in disarray. And Doug & Andy, too.
The weekend couldn’t have gone any better.
