If you didn’t know any better, you would have thought the New York Giants (6-11) were the team headed to the playoffs, not the Philadelphia Eagles (11-6).
The New York Giants led the Eagles 24-0 at halftime. At that point, Philadelphia removed most of their starters, and they would fall to the Giants 27-10 at MetLife Stadium on Sunday.
Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown left in the first quarter with a knee injury, and after the game got out of control, Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, who dislocated his middle finger on his throwing hand, was also removed.
Next Monday night, the Eagles, the fifth seed, will go on the road to battle the NFC South winner, the fourth-seeded Tampa Bay Buccaneers, in the wild-card round of the playoffs.
After being 10-1, the Eagles have lost five of six to finish the season, including losses to the Seahawks, Cardinals, and Giants.
Despite the struggles, the Eagles have a clean slate, and Hurts knows his team has to take advantage of that.
“It’s always another opportunity,” Hurts said of the playoffs. “It’s about taking advantage of the opportunity. Do I think we’ve done a good job of doing that? No. Not as of late. That takes complete ownership of every individual doing that. Now, it’s about finding that deep in our souls and figuring out ways to win. I think I’ve talked about the standard for a long time, and the standard is to never be compromised because that is something internal that drives you to be the best you can be and do what you’re capable of. Who cares how you win in the playoffs? Win or go home.”
Center Jason Kelce says the Eagles have much to clean up in the playoffs.
We have a lot to fix,” he said. “We have a lot to do better. This is our worst stretch of football since (Head Coach) Nick (Sirianni) has been here and it is very, very frustrating, but we are in the playoffs and it’s one-and-done and you’re out. We have the Buccaneers next week, and we are going to focus and prepare to try and go win the game.”
The Eagles did not play with much fire on Sunday and have not played very well for a long time. However, their head coach, Nick Sirianni, says this team is full of fighters who won’t quit.
“Yeah, I mean, none of us are quitters,” Sirianni said. “We all get up off the mat when we’re down, and we get up and we keep going. When you get hit in life, when you get hit in football, you’ve got two options: you can stay down, or you can get you can get up. I know this group is fighters; I know this group will get up. I know that we’ve all been through things in our life that we’ve all had to deal with (expletive), and we know how to get up. That’s why we’re all sitting in this room. The same message that I talked to the guys about last year going into the NFC Championship game about not only are we physically tough, we’re mentally tough and think about all the stuff that you’ve been through in your life and why you’re in this seat right now, is the same message I would say right now. Not only when you’ve won 15 games like we did that last year at that time, but also when you’re on a five-game losing streak.
“Again, nobody’s quitting on this team. Because that’s the reason all these guys are in that locker room because they know how to freaking fight. The coaches know how to freaking fight. The players know how to freaking fight. The staff know how to freaking fight. So, we’ll just get up, and we’ll fight again, and we’ll see what happens next week when we put everything we’ve got into it, and we’ve been putting everything we’ve got into it, but we’re going to put everything we’ve got up into it this week, and we’ll see what happens going on.”
The Eagles have a very winnable game against the Buccaneers; they beat this team in Tampa in Week 3, but that seems like a long time ago.
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