Good morning, New York Giants fans! Let’s start your day by looking at some notes and quotes from Sunday’s 28-23 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles.
Landon Collins offers support to Eli Apple
Rookie cornerback Eli Apple had a difficult afternoon against the Eagles. Missed tackles, penalties and losing contain on an 8-yard second-quarter touchdown run were all part of the first-round pick’s day. Ultimately, so was a second-half benching in favor of Trevin Wade.
Collins, starring at safety in his second season after a difficult rookie year, had words of encouragement for Apple.
“I went through it last year. I just told him to talk to me,” Collins said Sunday evening. “It is the way the game goes. You are going to have some great games; you are going to have some down games. You just have to be able to turn the page. We all have those games. We are always going to look back at Trevin Wade. Everyone is going to have these games and look at what he did today. Just keep your head up and keep pushing.”
Eli on last interception
Should the Giants have passed the ball on third-and-four from their own 29-yard line in an effort to get one final first down and win the game right there? Or, should they have run the ball, and punted if they weren’t successful in getting the first down?
They chose to pass. The result was one quarterback Eli Manning called “unfortunate,” with the ball being tipped and intercepted by linebacker Jordan Hicks, giving the Eagles one final chance.
“Will Tye ran a good route, got a guy open, ball gets tipped at the line of scrimmage, so it's just unfortunate. I hate tipped balls, I hate cheap interceptions and that's kind of as cheap as they come with the tipped ball at the line of scrimmage. We had a good play, everybody did the right thing and you have to give credit to them, their defensive line getting a hand up and getting a piece of the ball,” Manning said.
“It's tough. It's tough, keep interceptions where they call them, where guys are doing things right, you're in the pocket, you're seeing things, you've got a guy open, you know he's open, you throw it on time, you're having a completion, you're about to close out the game possibly and the ball’s tipped.”
Game notes
A few statistical items from Sunday:
- The Giants’ five victories have been by a combined 20 points.
- The Giants scored 14 points in the first quarter. They had scored a combined 14 first-quarter points in their first seven games – all against Washington on Sept. 25.
- The Giants scored two touchdowns in the game’s first 5:17. They had not scored two touchdowns so quickly in a regular-season game since they scored twice in the first 5:11 in a 21-0 season-opening victory on Sept. 8, 1985 – also a home game vs. Philadelphia.
- Manning’s 257 yards increased his career total to 46,428, moving him past Vinny Testaverde (46,233) and into ninth place on the NFL’s career list.
- Odell Beckham Jr. had two touchdown receptions to bring his career total to 30. That broke a tie with Mark Bavaro, and also moved him past Bob Schnelker (29). He is now ninth on the Giants’ career list. Plaxico Burress is eighth with 33.