Eagle Lands, and He’s Inbounds

In the Bronx, 10 miles from here, the Yankees beat the New York Giants to double figures Monday night. By the time the baseball team reached 12 runs in the late going of its decisive dismantling of the Mariners, the Giants had waltzed around with the equally hapless Philadelphia Eagles for three quarters here and only scored nine.

The Giants never did get off the nine, the result of three lonely field goals by Morten Andersen in the first half, whereas the Eagles, who hadn’t beaten New York since 1996, scored all their points in the last two periods and won the game, 10-9, on an 18-yard touchdown pass by Donovan McNabb to James Thrash with 1:52 to play that stood up to replay scrutiny by the officials.

This game, between the top two teams in the NFL’s NFC East, was supposed to wipe out the bad taste that the Washington-Dallas debacle left the previous Monday, but this was a lethargic effort by both sides.

The Eagles (3-2) won and moved into first, even though they used up all three of their timeouts with more than 11 minutes to play. Well, there’s always Tennessee at Pittsburgh, next Monday night.

Just like last week, in a one-point loss to the St. Louis Rams, the Giants’ defense accounted for six quarterback sacks, but their nine-game winning streak against the Eagles ended just the same.

“It’s disconcerting,” said Kerry Collins, the New York quarterback. “We should’ve won both these games, but that’s shoulda, coulda, woulda. We should have executed better and played smarter than we did.”

McNabb frequently plays poorly against the Giants, and this time, in front of 78,821 at Giants Stadium, he was hardly on the field at all in the lackluster first half. The Giants (3-3) held the Eagles to two first downs, ran 45 plays to Philadelphia’s 14 and didn’t permit the ball across their 50 until two minutes before halftime.

For all their dominance--the three field-goal drives consumed 21 of the first 30 minutes--the Giants never found the end zone. The teams finished almost even in total yards, with neither quarterback catching fire. McNabb passed for 154 yards and Collins had 162, only 41 in the second half.

Under Jim Fassel, the Giants are used to winning after leading at the half. They had won 27 of 28 that way before this one slipped away.

“We needed to manage our offense better in the second half,” Fassel said. “We got the three field goals and then got satisfied. We’ve got to play better and smarter. This is a bitter one to swallow.”

With about six minutes to play, Rodney Williams, the Giant punter, kicked the ball out of bounds at the Eagle 38-yard line. But New York’s Thabiti Davis was called for holding on the play, and when Williams punted again, from 10 yards farther back, the ball traveled only 27 yards, to the New York 40.

Finally, McNabb had some field position, though there were no timeouts. The quarterback scrambled for seven yards and Correll Buckhalter ran for four, the first down moving Philadelphia to the 29. For once the Giants didn’t pressure McNabb and his completion to Todd Pinkston picked up six yards. A play later, with the Eagles facing third and less than a yard, Buckhalter gained two for a first down at the 18.

After the two-minute warning gave the Eagles time to plot a play, Thrash raced into the end zone, angled to the sideline and got a step on William Peterson, and McNabb dropped the ball in his arms.

The Giants protested, claiming Thrash didn’t get both feet down inbounds before sliding across the sideline, but after a brief replay review the touchdown call was upheld.

Peterson, a rookie from Western Illinois, was in the lineup because the rookie regular, Will Allen, was out with an ankle injury.

David Akers, who had booted a 25-yard field goal late in the third quarter, kicked the point that broke the 9-9 tie.

“Most of the time, we did a good job keeping [McNabb] in the pocket,” Fassel said, “but [on the winning touchdown] he got out and made the play.”