Not long after the Philadelphia Eagles were installed as seven-and-a-half-point favorites over the New York Giants for their NFC divisional playoff game on Saturday night, skepticism began seeping through this passionate-yet-gloomy sports town – as it always does.
Seven-and-a-half points, great. But, wait. Can we beat the Giants three times this year?
The fans had to know. Proper statistics needed to be Googled, stories needed to be chased. The findings looked conclusive: Since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970, a team that had won two regular-season games over another team has won 15 of 24 playoff games if they met again in the playoffs. San Francisco beat Seattle last Saturday for the third time this season.
All that would seem to be good news for the Eagles (14-3), who manhandled the Giants (10-7-1) on 11 December, 48-22, then held off the Giants three weeks later, 22-16, to break their first losing streak of the season, and earn valuable home-field advantage through the NFC playoffs.
Jalen Hurts, the versatile and imperturbable Eagles’ quarterback, returned from a shoulder injury in the rematch and looked fine, even though Philadelphia thinned the playbook to limit Hurts’s exposure. It helped that New York, who were locked into a playoff berth, rested several starters, including quarterback Daniel Jones and running back Saquon Barkley.
However, more Philadelphia fans than you’d think looked at the 15-of-24 stat another way: But those series-winning teams compiled a 1.000 winning percentage in the regular season – but were only .625 in the playoffs! See? Their chances actually decrease! MAYDAY!
Marcus Hayes wrote a column, anyway, that was published on the front page Tuesday of the Philadelphia Inquirer. THE PLAYOFFS ARE LINING UP FOR EAGLES, read the all-uppercase headline. His first paragraph: “The Eagles got lucky on wild-card weekend. They watched an overrated Giants team beat a mirage in Minnesota.”
“The Eagles demolished them early in the season,” Hayes later told the Guardian. “The Giants finished 2-5-1. The Eagles have an advantage at every position. And fans love to fabricate worry. Teams sweep about 70% of the time. Also: Eagles had a bye in the first round of the playoffs.”
The Minnesota Vikings, the Giants’ victims in the first round of the playoffs, were indeed Nordic, Lite: The Vikings won 13 of 17 regular-season games despite being outscored by their opponents by an aggregate 427-424. (The Eagles beat the Vikings during the season.)
And yet, Philadelphia fans are diehard worry-fabricators. They have material. The Eagles won 13 of their first 14 games but have not played well since the first Giants game. Hurts, it turned out, was hurting in the last game against the Giants. Nick Sirianni, the Eagles’ head coach, has never won a playoff game – although, in mitigation, this is only his second year in the role.
“Well, there is that fatalism. It is part of the fabric in the city since 1964,” the longtime Philadelphia sports-talk host Glen Macnow, referring to the Phillies’ epic late-season collapse in that year’s National League pennant race, told the Guardian. “I would have hoped that the World Series win in 2008 and the Super Bowl in 2017 would have washed that away. But it’s back.
“It’s funny. I think Philadelphia fans were much more comfortable being the underdog in 2017 than they are being the favorite this year.”
In 2017, the Eagles (13-3) won home-field advantage for the NFC playoffs but were made the underdogs in games against Atlanta and Minnesota because quarterback Carson Wentz had torn up his knee in the 13th game of the regular season. The Eagles, behind backup Nick Foles, won both games, then toppled the favored New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII.
The Eagles got a big kick out of that slight themselves, pulling on Halloween dog masks after the victory over Atlanta. Philadelphia fans scooped up “Philadelphia Underdog” T-shirts after Halloween dog masks disappeared off the shelves of novelty stores in Philadelphia.
The 2022 Philadelphia Phillies, too, became beloved underdogs, claiming the final playoff spot in the 160th of 162 regular-season games, then eliminating three favorites – St Louis, Atlanta and San Diego – before losing in the World Series to the Houston Astros.
Howard Eskin, another longtime sports-talk radio host in Philadelphia, tried to calm down the populace by pointing out on Twitter that playoff teams playing their third straight game on the road, which the Giants will do this weekend, have a 10-37 record since 1990.
Eskin is an accomplished pot-stirrer, though, and he’d earlier mentioned the playoff record of teams that had swept a regular-season opponent. So the first comment on his 10-37 tweet came from someone with a Phillies logo as an avatar: “All the pressure is on the Eagles. No one expects the Giants to win. They have nothing to lose, but to come out and play hard.”
But the Eagles are 2-2 since the first Giants’ game, outscored by six total points. Lane Johnson, the impenetrable Philadelphia right tackle, plans to play Saturday, but he has missed two games with a torn abdominal muscle that will require off-season surgery.
There was just too much to worry about. Then Fox Sports announced that Joe Davis will be providing the play-by-play for Saturday’s game. Davis, the Philadelphia media quickly pointed out, called many of the Phillies’ games in their World Series march.
And then the NFL announced Wednesday that the officiating crew led by Clete Blakeman will call the Eagles-Giants game. The Eagles, it was noted, are 13-1 in games that have been called by crews led by Blakeman – including the 11 December Philadelphia victory.
The horizon was brightening for Philadelphia fans, indeed. But they still need to play the actual football game. The fact that the game starts at 8.15pm gives Eagles fans all day to get lubricated for the game, true. But they also have all day to fret over a cruel downfall, too.
The Inquirer primed the pump by running another front-page story Friday with this teaser: With the Eagles a playoff favorite, Philly finds itself in a weird and wonderful place. Can we handle it?
“By Sunday morning, the answer to CAN NICK SIRIANNI WIN A PLAYOFF GAME??!! needs to be yes, or the entire region will lose its mind,” the veteran Philadelphia sports reporter Les Bowen posted on his Facebook page.
