Grayson’s Grades: Eagles at Giants

The Philadelphia Eagles beat themselves and left plenty of missed opportunities on the field losing to the Giants 13-7. The Eagles turned it over four times and had several key dropped passes that led to the loss.

The defense played pretty well holding the Giants to just 13 points. They did not force any turnovers but did what they needed to in order to keep the team in the game.

The loss hurts on several fronts. The Eagles started to get a feeling they could still compete for the division title. But this division loss hurts those chances. A win in this one would have likely put the Eagles into a wild card spot. Now they remain on the outside looking in with five games remaining.

The Eagles will be right back inside Met Life Stadium next week when they visit the New York Jets.

This was an ugly game and the report card clearly reflects that. Here is the latest edition of Grayson's Grades:

A

Jason Kelce - Kelce should absolutely be on the Mount Rushmore of tough Philadelphia athletes. This guy went out in the first quarter with a knee injury. He kept lobbying the trainers and coaching staff to let him go back into the game. They kept him out until after halftime and eventually he returned. While he was out the Eagles offense struggled at times. His replacement Nate Herbig committed two big holding penalties with one of them taking a touchdown run off the board. Once Kelce returned, the run game seemed to get back on track. He is a tough guy who will always put his team and teammates before himself.

Miles Sanders - Sanders was running well until he injured an ankle. He eventually did come back into the game but did not play much after that. It is unclear if that was due to the injury or if it was a coaching decision. Sanders was averaging more than seven yards per carry with his longest rush going for 27 yards. He finished with nine carries for 64 yards.

Alex Singleton - Singleton did a great job of flying around the field. Several times he hit the hole and met the running back for a loss or short gain. Singleton had a solid game. He finished with a team-high 12 tackles. He also led the team with three tackles for a loss. Singleton even added a pass successfully defended.

Offensive Line - The offensive line paved the way for another 200 yard rushing effort. It was the third straight game that the Eagles rushed for more than 200 yards. That has not happened for the Eagles since the 1978 season. Lane Johnson, Jordan Mailata and Landon Dickerson once again did a great job. Jason Kelce and Jack Driscoll had to come out of the game at different times due to injury. Nate Herbig struggled with penalties while filling in for Kelce but did a good job taking over at Right Guard for Driscoll.

Fletcher Cox - Cox did a good job in the middle and helped to stop the run. He occupied linemen allowing linebackers to come up and make some tackles. Cox also did a great job of taking a solid angle on a run play to drop Saquan Barkley for a loss. Cox finished with two tackles including a tackle for a loss and a quarterback hit.

Javon Hargrave - Hargrave played well up the middle and did a good job helping to stuff the run. He recorded the only sack of the game for the Eagles. Hargrave finished with two tackles, one sack, one tackle for a loss and two quarterback hits.

Darius Slay - Slay had a pick-six in each of his last two games. As a result, the Giants did not throw his way much. He did a great job on one pass attempt to keep his eyes on the quarterback while playing the receiver. It was textbook coverage and that is why he avoided drawing a flag on the play. Slay finished with one pass successfully defended.

B

Derek Barnett - Barnett played a decent game. I have been quick to rip him in the past for his failures and particularly his undisciplined penalties. However, he did a good job helping to stop the run in this one. He had

Steven Nelson - Nelson did a good job in coverage. He saw a lot of passes come his way as the Giants seemed to avoid going after Darius Slay very often. Nelson did get flagged for one big pass interference penalty on third down in the endzone. The Giants capped off that drive with a touchdown. Nelson finished with six tackles and one pass successfully defended.

Jonathan Gannon - Gannon's defense did enough to give the Eagles a chance to win the game. The only negative I saw was a failure to really aggravate Daniel Jones in the pocket. There was not a ton of pressure on Jones, but the Eagles did do a good job stuffing the run. They held the Giants to 70 rush yards. Gannon's defense also came up with three huge stops with less than two minutes to go to give the Eagles offense another chance to try and win the game. After forcing turnovers the past few weeks, the Eagles failed to force any in this one. That is about the only other way they could have tried to help out the offense.

C

Boston Scott - Scott had a good game statistically rushing the ball with one huge exception. He broke through the hole late in the game with the Eagles down by six and thought he was about to break a big one when a Giants defender reached in and knocked the ball loose. He fumbled and turned it over. That turnover was costly as the Eagles would have had a first down on the Giants side of the field. Scott carried the ball 15 times for 64 yards and a touchdown. He added two receptions for eight yards.

D

Nick Sirianni - On the bright side Sirianni did allow the run game to rack up more yardage, but there were numerous plays called that had me scratching my head throughout this game. I failed to understand how Jalen Reagor was targeted twice on the final drive including on the final play with the game on the line. He has not shown he can make a big catch. It was especially puzzling when you see that DeVonta Smith had zero targets on the final two drives. I also don't understand how Dallas Goedert was targeted just three times and Smith four times in this one. At some point regardless of what the defense is doing, don't you need those playmakers to touch the ball on a screen or quick slant? Also, how do you fail to remind your quarterback on third down with eight seconds left in the half that the two worst things he can do are buy time outside of the pocket and NOT throw it away so you at least get a Field Goal? That interception at the end of the first half makes me sick. Yes, Hurts has to know better but I would have made sure he knew in the timeout before that play was run what the situation was.

F

Jalen Reagor - Reagor got seven targets in this game. Let that sink in. He got seven targets. Reagor caught just two passes. One of them was a nice catch along the sideline. Other than that he had a couple of drops, including two drops on the final possession of the game. Both of those drops were in the endzone or just outside of it. To his credit, he owned his mistakes and admitted he has to make those plays afterwards. Reagor has 25 catches on the season, but got seven targets in this one. He finished with two catches for 31 yards.

Jalen Hurts - There was no doubt, this was an awful game from Hurts. To say he struggled through the air is an understatement. Hurts threw two interceptions in the first half and one more in the second half. They were huge mistakes. There was NO excuse for having the ball inside the two with eight seconds remaining in the first half and scoring no points. Hurts rolled out and bought time and instead of throwing it away tried to force it into the endzone and it was picked off. Imagine how different the fourth quarter is if the Eagles were down a field goal instead of six points. I also question his decision making with where to go with the ball, especially in crunch time. How are you throwing it twice to Jalen Reagor on the final possession? After he already dropped one in the endzone, why was he getting the fourth down pass? Hurts did make some nice plays with his legs, but that was about it for positives.