Jackson's two touchdowns were the difference in NY.


Beating the Giants wasn't quite as easy this time around as it took six touchdowns to put away Eli Manning and company in the final Eagles-Giants bout to be played in Giants Stadium.

Donovan McNabb threw two scores (one to DeSean Jackson and one to Brent Celek), Leonard Weaver and Michael Vick each ran for a score, and the defense and special teams even chipped in with one score each via a Sheldon Brown fumble recovery and a Jackson punt return.

With a score sheet like that, you'd think this game would have been an absolute blowout. But, unfortunately, the Eagles' defense was absolutely atrocious and gave up a box score to the Giants nearly as impressive.

Over 500 yards of offense and five touchdowns simply will not get it done when the playoffs roll around. Giving up those kind of numbers to any team will result in an early exit. There isn't a playoff team with safeties as poor as the Giants', so McNabb and Jackson won't be able to play pitch-and-catch over the deep middle en route to a victory.

The front four was especially disappointing. Darren Howard had two sacks, one of them the strip-sack to officially end the game, and Juqua Parker had half a sack along with Joselio Hanson.

Three sacks isn't bad, but when you take into account that one sack only came as a result of a zero blitz, and the other was the result of Eli moving around and trying to make a play at the end of the game, you've got one legitimate sack on a great spin move by Howard.

Sacks aside, the amount of times Eli was hurried in the pocket was...well, it was nearly non-existent. Even blitzing didn't get the job done as the sixth, seventh, and even eighth man sent couldn't seem to penetrate a five-man line. It's a huge issue that will plague this team in January.

Outside of the fumble caused by Trent Cole and returned by Brown, the defense didn't do a whole lot to help this offense, but they did just enough. It's a good feeling to come out with a win like this, but the Eagles understand that the defense must be better if they want to capture that elusive Lombardi Trophy.