Giants, Eagles Still Trying to Get Respect

For the 134th time in NFL history, the New York Giants and Philadelphia Eagles will play each other. Never have both teams felt so little respect.

Giant and Eagle rooters look forward to exchanging threats, insults and maybe a punch or two today, in the cold, dark, windy parking lot in the Jersey swampland known as the Meadowlands. Both clans of fans have reason to feel put upon.

The Giants have home-field advantage for the playoffs, but nobody thinks they can go to the Super Bowl. The Eagles have won seven of their last eight games, and nobody thinks they are still in the playoffs.

“I don’t understand it,” Giant quarterback Kerry Collins said. “But I guess we have a lot to prove.”

“How many times do we have to win,” Eagle defensive lineman Hugh Douglas asked, “before someone gives us a chance?”

The Giants missed the playoffs the last two years, and as recently as six weeks ago it seemed likely the Giants would miss again and Coach Jim Fassel would lose his job. But Fassel boldly guaranteed his team would play in the postseason, and the Giants haven’t lost since.

Collins, who as recently as two years ago seemed likely to be out of the league and in alcohol rehab, has straightened up his life and his arm. Collins has thrown 22 touchdown passes this season and has carved up the Eagles’ defense. In New York’s season sweep of Philadelphia, Collins completed 43 of 66 passes for 473 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions.

“It wasn’t easy,” Collins said diplomatically. But it sure seemed to be.

All of the Giants had an easy time against the Eagles this season. New York won the first game, 33-18, at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. A month later, the Giants won, 24-7, at the Meadowlands. The Giants controlled the ball 83 of 120 minutes in the two games and did not commit a turnover. “Ball control again is the key,” said Giant running back Tiki Barber, who averaged 7.8 yards a carry against the Eagles. “But I don’t think it will be easy to do that again. I really don’t.”

Fassel has an 8-0 record with the Giants against the Eagles. “Sometimes those things just happen,” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything for the next game.”

The Giants have been diplomatic. Fassel has made it clear he wants no trash talk, no instigators, no bulletin-board posts coming out of New York.

But the Eagles don’t need New Yorkers to insult them. They have been ripped enough in Philadelphia.

When Donovan McNabb, the charismatic, acrobatic and extremely talented quarterback, was drafted out of Syracuse by the Eagles two years ago, then-mayor Ed Rendell ripped the choice. Rendell had lobbied loud and hard for the Eagles to take Ricky Williams, and Rendell encouraged a radio campaign against the choice of McNabb. At Rendell’s request, a bus full of angry Philadelphia fans went to the draft in New York and booed McNabb as he walked to the podium to accept his first Eagle cap.

Now McNabb has accounted for 75% of the Philadelphia offense. When the Eagles lost running back Duce Staley early in the season, it was assumed the team would fold. “Everybody assumed that but us,” McNabb said.

Who needs a tailback when you have McNabb? Besides passing for 3,365 yards and 21 touchdowns, McNabb is also the Eagles’ leading rusher with 629 yards and seven touchdowns.

You’d think McNabb is stoppable because he is pretty much the only offensive weapon.

“You’d think,” Eagle offensive lineman Tra Thomas said. “But you only think that until you watch Donovan in action.”

For the first time since 1978, the Eagles have had the same offensive line start all 16 regular-season games, and that is a little secret weapon. Thomas, John Welburn, Bubba Miller, Jermane Mayberry and Jon Runyan work well together. “They are great,” McNabb said. “I trust them, they trust me. It works.”

The defense also works.

“Every game, we all realize that everybody expects us to lose,” said Douglas, who has 15 sacks. “We know we don’t have the most potent offense in the world. But with Donovan you never know what can happen, so it’s up to us to keep the game close and give Donovan his chances.”

The Giants lead the all-time series with the Eagles, 73-58-2. Twenty-four times in NFL history, a team that swept an opponent during the regular season played that opponent again in the playoffs. The Giants are trying to become the 15th team to complete a 3-0 sweep.

“You know, I don’t want to hear all those stats,” Barber said. “You listen to those stats and you get cocky. The Eagles hear those stats and I’m sure it only makes them mad. We can’t think about those stats. We just have to think about how if we lose we’ll only make the doubters right.”

And down I-95 about 80 miles Douglas said almost the same thing. “No one thinks we can do anything,” he said. “Fine. It just means we’ll surprise someone again.”