Three Things: Eagles versus Giants

1. Rookie Earl Wolff will be making his second career start for the Eagles in place of starting safety Patrick Chung. Chung is still dealing with a shoulder injury that kept him out of last week’s game against the Denver Broncos. Wolff will be facing Eli Manning and the Giants offense. Manning has been less than spectacular this season completing only 56.3% of his passes and a 6-9 TD/INT ratio. The Giants beleaguered front line should be an asset to the Eagles defense. The defense must continually exert pressure and confuse the line especially with center Jim Cordle only making his second career start. The added pressure, inexperience, and lack of talent on the Giants offensive line should contribute to the Eagles secondary having a good day. Eli will not have much time to decide where to go with the ball and will, hopefully, make some bad decisions. If the Giants do have time, they will continually try to exploit the inexperience of Wolff with crossing routes and wheel routes in an attempt to confuse Wolff on his assignments.
2. LeSean McCoy will continue to get a heavy dose of touches. He already has 78 rushing attempts through 4 games while averaging 6 yards per rush. It would not surprise me to see a little more dump off passes to McCoy in the flat and in space because Michael Vick has held the ball over 4 seconds per drop back which is the most in the NFL. The amount of time he holds the ball leaves him open to more hits from the opposing defensive line and linebackers. Chip Kelly needs to limit the times that Vick gets hit per game if he wants him to last the entire season.
3. Keep an eye on the Eagles linebackers today as they will be the key to stopping the Giants inept rushing game. David Wilson will get around 20-25 rushes today in an attempt to keep the Eagles high powered offense off the field. In 4 games, Wilson has only averaged 3.4 yards per rush attempt which is below average. Even so, the Eagles must focus on stopping the Giants run game and force them to pass more than they want in order to force turnovers and get the offense back on the field.

The Eagles will pull this game out, dubbed the Desperation Bowl, 41-21.