Blame Game

For a team that had hopes to win the NFC East and even make a run at the Superbowl, it was hard to swallow the effort displayed by the Philadelphia Eagles in the first half against the New York Giants. Eagle fans weren’t only stunned that they were trailing by a wide margin, but at how much difficulty their offense had with the stingy G-men defense. The script completely flipped in the 4th quarter, though, as the Eagles showed the league why they’re so good. As we all saw, the Eagles ended up scoring a miraculous 28 points in the final 7:18 of the game with Desean Jackson scoring the game winning touchdown on a punt return as regulation expired. I’m still in awe over the performance by the Birds. It was like the scene out of Space Jam when Bugs Bunny grabbed the water bottle labeled “Michael’s Secret stuff” and the Looney Tunes started playing like beasts. The final eight minutes of the game was a total state of shock for fans on both sides as the Eagles made a stunning turnaround.
So how did this game from Hell for Giants fans take place in their very own Meadowlands? Let’s play the Blame Game. There are several candidates up for this great distinctive honor, starting with:

1. Matt Dodge
Any punter in their right mind during this situation would know not to kick the ball to Desean Jackson. The man has proved a countless number of times how fast and deadly he is with the ball in his hands. Kicking the ball to him in this scenario is asking him sincerely to score. Jackson practically is the best returner in the game right behind Devin Hester. The man loves to cross the pylon in big game situations and what better way to do it than against your NFC East rivals in a game that everyone assumed was heading into overtime.

2. Special teams
As far as NFL rules state, there must be 11 men on the field for a team. Matt dodge is one, so that means he had 10 other guys with him during Jackson’s punt return. Dodge wasn’t the only one that Jackson evaded during the play. 10 other guys attempted to catch him or missed him. Dodge shouldn’t be the blame for the whole game or even this play. One player doesn’t equal 38 points. Remember that the Eagles also recovered an onside kick which led to a score. Stressing my main point again, games aren’t judged by one play!

3. Offense
Each NFL football game has 60 minutes of regulation. The Giants offense only played 30 minutes this game against the Birds. They came out striking without fear in the first half scoring 24 points with a commanding 21 point lead into halftime. In the second half, the Giants "O" scored only seven points. Games aren’t won on by a play, drive, or in this case a half. These things may give you momentum, but they don’t win a game. You have to do the little things and keep progressing throughout a game no matter what the circumstance is. Eli may have finished with 289 passing yards and four TD’s, but it obviously wasn’t enough.

4. Defense
As previously mentioned, the Eagles scored more points on the Giants in the final 8 minutes than they did in the whole game. The Eagles offense was electrifying and couldn’t be stopped no matter what play they called. Vick got whatever he wanted and the chains kept moving play after play. No matter how good an offense is, no defense should let this amount of points be scored on them in this amount of time.
You can decide who’s to blame, but we may have found the spearhead behind this all? Drum roll please.........

The Eagles were obviously prepared and coached for this situation better than Giants, which brings about the 5th candidate, Coach Tom Coughlin. Before you yell down the throat of a rookie for a punt, you should first look at what you did wrong. All great teams know how to handle themselves in the face of adversity. The Eagles proved their resilience while the Giants showed no signs of it. As the great boxer, Mike Tyson, said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”