Eagles Week 15 Recap: Miracle At The New Meadowlands

The perfect Christmas card for Giants fans.

On to the bullet points of one of the greatest comebacks I've ever seen in football.

• That just happened.
• Joe Pisarcik/Herm Edwards.  Jeff Feagles/Brian Westbrook.  Matt Dodge/DeSean Jackson.  The last of the three may be the most improbable of all.
• But for all the talk about the Jackson punt return, the Eagles were trailing 24-10 in the 4th quarter when DeSean Jackson caught a pass and took it to the 40 yard line.  After being touched by Goff, Jackson fell down, the ground caused a fumble, and the Giants recovered.  Clearly, Goff had touched Jackson and before he hit the ground and the ball came out after Jackson hit the ground, but for reasons of pure idiocy, Andy Reid did not challenge.  The Giants proceed to drive down the field for a touchdown.  8 minutes left, 31-10 Eagles.  Game over, right?
• Wrong.  Next drive, Vick to Celek.  One of the best onside kicks ever executed.  Vick making plays with his legs.  QB draw.  QB touchdown.  Just like that it's 31-24 with the Giants having never touched the ball.  Giants get the ball.  Eagles get a stop.  With the ball at their own 88 yard line, Vick makes plays with his legs and his feet again.  Eventually, inside the Giants 20 Vick finds Maclin who breaks a tackle and scores a TD to incredibly tie the game with less than 2 minutes left.  Giants get the ball back.  They go 3 and out.  The last play of the drive was a sack.  Clock ticking.  Giants call timeout with 12 seconds left, right before the play clock expired.  Then Matt Dodge punted the ball.  DeSean Jackson bobbled it, picked it up, and the rest is history.
• So, how did this happen?  How does a team that is completely dominated for 52 minutes, come back and win the game in 8 minutes?  And how does a team up 21 with 52 minutes left completely collapse in the last 8?  I'll give my take on the Jackson return in a second, but the comeback in general was started because of one man, Michael Vick.  All game long the Giants had been blitzing and getting to Vick, largely taken advantage of the astoundingly awful King Dunlap.  To counter said blitz, you need two things:  a).  a screen game.  Or b). an athletic QB who can run.  The Eagles opted for option b.  For the first 52 minutes, no QB draws were called and for the most part, Vick was not taking off and running with the ball.  In the final 8 minutes, that changed.  Vick eluded pressure and took off when he saw daylight in front of him.  Outside of make shift scrambles, QB draws were called as well.  Vick had 94 rushing yards in the 4th quarter!  There were other factors, but if you are searching for an anatomy of this comeback, it was Mike Vick running the ball.  That's what changed.  The Giants never adjusted.  And that's how the Eagles scored 21 points in 7 minutes.
•  To the 8th minute and the final 7 points.  I may have a screen-by-screen breakdown later, but for now, I'll just describe what happened and what I saw.  Tom Coughin reportedly told Matt Dodge to punt it out of bounds, the smart move.  It would not kill all 12 seconds, but it would force either a hail mary attempt or the Eagles would just take a knee, satisfied to take it into overtime.  Instead, the snap was high, Dodge believed that because of that, he did not have enough time to angle his punt out of bounds as needed.  His hurried punt forced a line drive that went right to DeSean Jackson.  What happened next was the key to everything.  DeSean Jackson bobbled the punt.  While an accident, this allowed for two things to happen.  The Giants defense collapsed around Jackson and the Eagles special teams unit were given 1 or 2 more seconds to set up their blocks, including Omar Gaither blocking a Giant into two other Giants causing a domino effect taking them all out.  This allowed Jackson to find a seam up the middle.  A block from Jason Avant at the 45 cemented the return from the speedy Jackson.
• Before Jackson crossed the goalline, he ran diagonal into the endzone, in what was a feeble effort to kill the clock.  I say feeble because the clock had already expired, but Jackson may not have been aware of it as he was reading the defense and running full speed on a game-winning punt return touchdown, the first ever in NFL history.  Because of the unnecessary nature of the extra running, many will see what DeSean Jackson did as show-boating.  But trust me, when DeSean Jackson showboats (a.k.a. last Sunday in Dallas), you know it.  That was intended as a heads-up football play that ultimately was not needed.
• Most media outlets have already named this the "Miracle At The New Meadowlands."  Seeing as it's the last Sunday before Christmas, I was hoping someone would name it after the street New Meadowlands Stadium is on, a la Miracle On 34th Street.   But good luck with "Miracle On New Jersey Route 120" ever catching on.
• Not to be a Debbie Downer now, but 52 other minutes were played in this game.  And during those minutes, the Eagles lost 2nd round draft pick Nate Allen to a petallar tendon injury, effectively ending his season.  And in the span of less than a week, the Eagles have lost their top 2 draft picks from the 2010 draft.  Your starting full safety will now be 7th round draft pick Kurt Coleman.
• BREAKING NEWS:  King Dunlap is terrible.
• Dimitri Patterson had a nightmare.  Eli Manning picked on him all game long.  The re-addition of Samuel was a boost, but it can only help so much if other QBs continually pick apart Patterson like Manning did today.
• Enough negative nancy shit, that was one of the greatest comebacks in Philadelphia Eagles history, and perhaps even one of the top 10 in NFL history.  Seriously, amazing.  The Miracle At The New Meadowlands.  And Giant fans thought Herm Edwards and Brian Westbrook were bad.  And this was less than a week after the Phillies came out of nowhere to sign Cliff Lee out from under the noses of the New York Yankees, and a day removed from the Flyers putting a solid 4-1 beatdown of the New York Rangers.  Now not every Yankee fan is a Giants and/or Rangers fan, but to steal and modify a joke Grant from McCovery Chronicles made on Twitter a month or so ago when FC Dallas lost the MLS Cup off the heals of the Rangers losing the World Series:  there must be some guy in the New York metropolitan area who is a Yankees, Giants, and Rangers fan.  And he's in a dark, dark place right now.
• At the end of the game, Tom Coughlin went haywire on his punter Matt Dodge.  While Dodge had no business ever kicking that to Jackson regardless of how high the snap was, Matt Dodge did not blow a 21-point lead with 8 minutes left.  That burden should belong to Perry Fewell and Tom Coughlin for not making adjustments, and for the Giants players for being out of position and/or whiffing while trying to tackle Vick.
• I am working all day tomorrow, so either tomorrow night or Tuesday, I will have more on this game and this comeback.  
• Lastly, the epic win probability graph. (advancednflstats.com)