Raise your hand if you thought the Eagles were dead when they went down 19-6 to the Giants in the second period of yesterday's NFC East battle at the Linc?
Yeah, I hear you.
I was one of those tweeting that the season was over. Forget that Thanksgiving bird. You could stick a fork in the Eagles. They were done. Cooked.
Then, something odd happened.
Carson Wentz did something I have been waiting for him to do.
He put this team on his back and willed them to a win.
That is what great quarterbacks do. And I still think Wentz has the ability to do that, but until yesterday every time he had the opportunity, especially late in close games, he had come up short when he had the chance to drive his team to a win.
Not yesterday.
Yes, he had help.
Doug Pederson finally remembered the recipe this team used last year to ride to a Super Bowl win.
That would be running the ball.v
And despite all the injuries to their running backs, the Birds still have the ability to pound the rock.
Undrafted rookie Josh Adams, the Notre Dame product, continues to show glimpses that he could be a featured back in this league. All Pederson has to do is feed him - give him the ball. Every time he gets the chance, Adams delivers. And his first bolt - a 50-yard dash for a touchdown - was called back by a penalty.
Adams rushed 22 times for 84 yards.
The Eagles have won five games this year. They've run the ball effectively, a nice balance of the rush and the pass, in all five of them.
When they revert to Pederson's first love, throwing the ball and getting way out of balance in their run-pass ratio, they struggle. Teams tee off on Wentz, who either holds the ball too long, or presses and makes a bad decision, usually winding up in a turnover.
No yesterday.
First Wentz drove the team to a key score just before halftime to put the paddles on the Eagles chest and very likely save their season.
After looking like a team that had quit for much of the first half, the Birds went to the break down only 19-11.
The second half was a reverse of the first.
The Giants were the ones who looked dead from the neck up.
For some reason they decided to go away from what had been working for them. The Eagles had no answer for rookie Penn State great Saquon Barkley in the first. For some reason he disappeared in the second half.
Jim Schwartz's patchwork defense (go head, I dare you to name the guys who were playing in that secondary yesterday!) which basically had the ball run down their throat in the first half, turned the tables on the Giants in the second.
The improbable win saves the Eagles season.
They are now 5-6 and just a game back of the Cowboys and Redskins. The Cowboys play the Saints Thursday night. Then next Monday the Eagles face the Redskins. First place could be on the line.
The Birds aren't dead.
In the inimitable words of Richie Ashburn, "Hard to believe, Harry."
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