The New York Giants ended up in the race for the playoffs until the very end of the season, but they won’t make it in as the NFC East representative despite handling their business in the last game of the season. That’s because, despite the Giants win over the Cowboys, the result didn’t go in the right direction in the other NFC East game that took place on Sunday. Washington defeated the Eagles, and as such, they’ll take the crown as the best of the bad teams in this division and head to the playoffs.
The result doesn’t com without controversy, however. The Eagles will be under fire from Giants fans for a while thanks to the way they handled things in the final game. They lost by a decent enough margin that the game easily could have went their way, but Philadelphia made the strange decision to forego both Carson Wentz and Jalen Hurts at quarterback in favor of Nate Sudfeld. The decision, which came midway through the game, played into the Washington victory.
While it’s debatable whether the Eagles’ tank move should be allowed or not, it’s already brought anger from the Giants’ corner of social media. And Sudfeld himself, even if it’s undeserved, will likely become a hated name for much of the offseason as the end of the season becomes infamous.
I mean, the Eagles' players gave everything they had tonight. We knew they were outmanned.
But the decision to pull Jalen Hurts, even if it was planned, goes completely against Roger's integrity of the league mantra.
— Art Stapleton (@art_stapleton) January 4, 2021
This is sickening
— Darius Slayton (@Young_Slay2) January 4, 2021
This is why we don’t like the Eagles. https://t.co/Efe7kEPtES
— Eli Manning (@EliManning) January 4, 2021
The Giants did have a chance to avoid getting into this position in the first place – if they had picked up another win earlier in the season, they could have guaranteed their playoff spot with their win in the last week against Dallas. Because of that, Evan Engram’s drop against Philadelphia earlier in the year is more significant than it initially appeared. That one play cost a game for the Giants, and now, one game is exactly what they needed to avoid relying on Philadelphia.
Either way, the season is over and the Giants haven’t made it into the playoffs. There’s a lot of offseason decisions to make, however, and the team can at least claim to have accomplished more than in the previous seasons. They came much closer, after all. And they may just have made it in if it wasn’t for a late controversial tanking effort by the Eagles.