Dec 7th 2008 2:43PM by Chris Burke (author feed)
Filed under: Eagles, GiantsI reached a conclusion during the first half of today’s Philadelphia-New York game: When Brian Westbrook plays, Donovan McNabb takes care of the ball and the Eagles defense shows up, then Philly is still a pretty solid team.

The Eagles played a great opening two quarters in New York today. Up until the last play of the half - when the Giants blocked a David Akers field goal attempt and ran it back, turning a possible 13-0 Philadelphia lead into a mere 10-7 advantage — Philly did everything it needed to in order to take down arguably the NFL’s best team.

The whole show started with the Eagles’ defense. Philadelphia never managed to sack Eli Manning, but the secondary stepped up and held him to a 5-for-15 first half through the air. The Giants ran for 59 yards, 43 of them coming from Brandon Jacobs, but Philadelphia seemed content to let that happen, so long as Manning never got hot. Philly even managed to take away New York’s near-automatic kicker John Carney, packing a long field goal attempt to keep the Giants off the board.Continue Reading