5 things the Eagles need to accomplish against the lowly Giants

The Philadelphia Eagles are going to Metlife Stadium in Week 7 to play the New York Giants. It’s the Eagles' first divisional game of the season, and these games are going to go a long way in keeping their postseason hopes alive.

It would be great if the Eagles turned this game into a statement game and dropped a 50-burger, but at this point, we’re hoping that the offense can be consistent, that the defense can string together a few consecutive good performances, and that the team can beat a bad divisional rival.

The Eagles’ strengths will be key to a divisional win in Week 7 (mostly)

This will be the Eagles' first game against the Giants without Boston Scott on the roster since 2018. Unfortunately, they won’t have a nuclear weapon that is only effective against the Giants. Fortunately, now they have Saquon, and he’s a nuke that can work on just about everybody.

Give Saquon the ball

On Dec. 22, 2019, the New York Giants played the Washington Redskins. Saquon Barkley had the best game of his career when he ran the ball 22 times for 189 yards and a touchdown and caught the ball four times for 90 yards and a touchdown.

Would it be totally awesome for Saquon to rush for 190 yards and have the new-best game of his career in his first-ever game against his former team? Yeah. That’d be ruthlessly hilarious and ultra-sick.

That probably won’t happen, but Saquon needs to be fed early and often, and then late and often. Whoever is in charge of the offense should have walked up to the whiteboard, slit their palm with a ritual knife, and written ‘SAQUON’ in blood.

Sean Peyton just went down to New Orleans and his Broncos beat the will out of the Saints. That was an awesome revenge game. The Eagles need to outdo that with Saquon’s revenge game. 

Let him run until the Giants owner John Mara fires his general manager Joe Schoen during the game. That’s the only thing that should satiate Saquon’s thirst for vengeance.

Take advantage of the Giants’ left tackle

If left tackle Andrew Thomas isn’t the best player on the Giants' entire roster, he’s the second-best. He just had season-ending surgery on his foot. That’s a huge loss, both literally and figuratively.

It sounds like his replacement will be Joshua Ezeudu. It’s his third season in the NFL and he is still very much a project-type player who still needs to develop. If he doesn’t work out, they’ll move their right tackle Jermaine Eluemunor to the left side and then put the very very very bad Evan Neal in at right tackle.

Aside from the Giants losing an incredibly impactful player, this is huge for the Eagles because the defensive line has had the most success when they are lining up against makeshift offensive lines. Which… duh. They should have success there.

Unfortunately, the D-Line has only had consistent success against those kinds of lines. In Week 3, the Saints lost their center and had to move a guard over and replace his spot, and the defense feasted. In Week 6, the Browns lost their center and had to move a backup guard over and replace his spot, and the defense feasted.

Brandon Graham and Josh Sweat should be able to take over this game. They’re two veterans who know how to deal with inexperienced players and they’ll need to be able to affect Daniel Jones before he can get the ball out. 

Luckily, Daniel Jones's average time to throw is 2.72 seconds. If that time holds true, it would be the fourth longest of the quarterbacks the Eagles have run into (Derek Carr was 2.64, Jordan Love was 2.8, and Kirk Cousins was 2.93).

Cover Malik Nabers

It looks like the Giants nailed it when they drafted Malik Nabers with the sixth overall pick in the 2024 draft. The dude is a baller. 

He’s had to sit out the past two games because of a concussion, but in the first four games he had 35 catches for 386 yards and three touchdowns. DeVonta Smith, who has also played in four games, has 24 catches for 303 yards and two touchdowns.

Nabers is the most dangerous weapon on the Giants’ offense, and they know it and act on it. He’s run 145 routes and he’s been targeted on 35.9 percent of them. Last Year, Tyreek Hill had the highest target rate in the NFL at 37.8 percent. The only player in the NFL that has a higher target rate this year is Cooper Kupp at 39.1 percent. That means the players that are covering him are going to constantly work, and that’s what makes this awesome. 

For the foreseeable future, we’re going to get a Quinyon Mitchell and Malik Nabers matchup twice a year and that’s awesome. There’s simply nothing better than a good cornerback and wide receiver rivalry.

A key to the Eagles winning this game is Q winning his reps. If he can show that he is the more dominant of the two rookies, not only will it give the Eagles a huge edge, but it’ll start something special.

Handle the pass rush

Whatever your opinion of the Giants may be, just know that their defensive line is the best position group on the entire team. 

Going into Week 7, they have the most sacks in the entire NFL with 26. Two-time All-Pro defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence is leading the way with seven, just half a sack short of his career-high… through just 6 games. He’s playing at a different level than we’ve ever seen of him.

Cam Jurgens and the gang are going to have their hands full dealing with that defensive front. Luckily for them, Dexter Lawrence and two-time Pro-Bowler Brian Burns have not practiced yet this week. Lawrence has been listed as a DNP on the injury report with a hip injury and Burns has been listed as a DNP with a groin injury. Both of them said that they would be able to play on Sunday, but they’re clearly being hampered by something.

Once that front gets dealt with, the only thing standing in the offense’s way will be themselves because the rest of the Giants' defense is really bad. They simply don’t have enough to stop all of the Eagles’ weapons. The Eagles' offensive scheme is still (and frustratingly so) ‘Our guys are more talented than your guys. We’re not going to do anything with play design to make their lives easier,’ and that should be enough to move the ball and score more than 20 points.

Get an early lead

The Eagles haven’t scored a single point in the first quarter through 5 games. That simply HAS to change. Unfortunately, it seems like Nick Sirianni isn’t actively trying to make it change.

When Nick met with the media on Monday, he was asked about what the offense can do to improve on their slow starts. Nick said, “...If there was something magic, we’d be doing it…We just got to figure it out. We got to put the guys into positions to succeed. The guys have to go out and execute, it’s always going to be that. And, we have to keep trying new formulas… we just got to keep trying different formulas of things that have been successful in the past, things that we think can be successful for this team. Again, just sprinkling different formulas in there because we know how important it is that we get on the board first…” (3:22 in the video below)

First of all, “we just got to figure it out” is not a plan. “We just got to figure it out” is what you say when you run out of beer and you can’t make it out of your driveway to go get more because the roads are covered in black ice.

Second, the formulas that you’re using are clearly incorrect. If you’re trying to figure out how much speed an airplane needs to get off a runway, but the only equation you know is Y=mx+b, you’re never going to get the answer. You can write it as Y-b=mx, Y/mx=b, or mx-y=-b and you're never going to figure it out. When it comes to game planning and the offense, Nick is trying to use middle school math to do physics.

The Eagles need an overhaul of their scripted plays because what they’re doing has been failing since Friday, Sept. 6. It sounds like they’re going into a meeting room, drawing a bunch of plays on pieces of paper, putting them in a hat, randomly pulling them out, and making their script.

Whatever they’re doing hasn’t worked, and there’s no reason to believe that it will consistently work. It’s not a matter of changing formulas, it’s about changing the process. The problem is that the Eagles will score points on their first drive at some point this season and Sirianni will think that means what he is doing is right.