The Philadelphia Eagles Divisional Round matchup against the New York Giants brings back a lot of old memories of NFC East battles of the past. The northeast rivals enter this weekend with a spot in the NFC Championship Game on the line. Philadelphia enters as the heavy favorites, but New York has a ton of momentum on their side.
They won in impressive fashion at Minnesota in the Wild Card Round, 31-24. Giants QB Daniel Jones had arguably the best game of his career, tossing for over 300 yards and leading the team in rushing.
For our Eagles-Giants preview and full Divisional playoff predictions, listen below:
Meanwhile, the Eagles have next to no momentum coming into this game. They began the season 13-1 before dropping two of their final three games. Of course, those losses coincided with Jalen Hurts' injury. Hurts returned after missing a couple games to play in their Week 18 matchup with the Giants.
The Eagles won that game, 22-16, sweeping the regular season series. However, New York benched the majority of its starters having been locked into the fifth seed already. So, we can't really take very much from that game.
With an opportunity to play in the conference title game at stake, let's get to our Eagles Divisional Round predictions against the Giants.
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3. Eagles defense holds Saquon Barkley under 70 yards rushing
There is no secret that the New York Giants want to run the football. Yes, I know, Jones has done a good job distributing the ball to Darius Slayton and company lately. But they are still a run-first offense that needs to stay ahead of the chains. They will find that difficult this week against the Eagles though.
Philadelphia's defense is far superior to Minnesota's. The Vikings finished the regular season among the worst in the league, leading to defensive coordinator Ed Donatell being fired Thursday.
In their Week 14 matchup, the Eagles held Saquon Barkley to 28 yards rushing on nine carries. I don't expect him to be shut down that badly this weekend, but he will not be exploding on the Eagles defense either.
Look for Philly to hold the former Pro Bowl running back under 70 yards on Saturday night.
2. AJ Brown goes over 100 yards receiving, scores 1+ touchdowns
A lot of people are going to be looking at Miles Sanders as the key to this game. I am not one of them. Sanders went bananas in that first meeting. He rushed for 144 yards and two touchdowns. The Eagles as a team actually scored four rushing touchdowns in that game.
But the Giants are fully aware that they cannot let Philadelphia mow them down on the ground. New York is going to stack the box, especially early in the game to slow down the Eagles rushing attack. As good as Sanders is, he is a downhill runner. If you can get him moving laterally, he is not nearly as effective.
I believe that will be the Giants game plan defensively. However, in order for them to do that, they will have to drop safeties into the box on occasion. That will create a number of one-on-one matchups on the outside.
Da'Vonta Smith emerged late in the season as a target hog. But that was primarily with Gardner Minshew filling in for Hurts. With the Eagles starting QB back in the fold, look for him to find AJ Brown early and often in this game. As it is, New York already plays a ton of man coverage with a single high safety.
So, there were already going to be opportunities for Brown and Smith. But with them likely having to stack up against the run, Nick Sirianni and company should be able to make this adjustment pretty quickly.
1. Giants cover, Eagles advance to NFC Championship
The Eagles are the favorite and for good reason. They have been arguably the best team in football all season. That earned them the right to have this game played in front of their home crowd. The place will of course be a raucous environment and will make life difficult on Jones and the Giants offense.
But there are plenty of indicators to make me believe the Giants will be in this football game. For one, the Eagles have actually lost their last four playoffs games outright as the betting favorite. Meanwhile, the Giants set an NFL record by covering the spread as an underdog 11 times this season.
Jones is 19-7 in his career against the line on the road. Shockingly, the G-Men have also covered the spread 10 straight games when playing on a short week. All signs point to this being a good game.
But at the end of the day, the Eagles simply have too much talent and play-making ability to lose at home. Philadelphia will advance to the NFC Championship, 24-20.
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