Tyrod Taylor, Giants eye turning tables on Eagles in season finale
Tyrod Taylor of the Giants runs the ball during the third quarter against the Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field on Dec. 25, 2023, in Philadelphia Credit: Getty Images/Adam Hunger
History indicates the Giants will have their hands full on Sunday, to say the least.
They are 3-17 in their last 20 games against the Eagles and have lost the last five meetings.
It would seem like a considerable achievement if these Giants (5-11) could steal a victory and send Philadelphia (11-5) into the playoffs with another loss.
Tyrod Taylor, a pending free agent who has told Newsday that he plans to play beyond this season, is the Giants’ starting quarterback again.
“Obviously, we’re out of the playoffs,” Taylor said, “but we want to finish the season on a good note.”
But the Eagles are still formidable, their late-season swoon notwithstanding. They’ve lost four of their last five games. The lone win was against the Giants on Christmas Day.
Philadelphia has six Pro Bowlers — running back D’Andre Swift, wide receiver A.J. Brown, left guard Landon Dickerson, center Jason Kelce, right tackle Lane Johnson and outside linebacker Haason Reddick — and therein may lie the biggest disparity between these teams. The Giants have one, nose tackle Dexter Lawrence.
Taylor, of course, is hoping the Giants end the season on a high note.
“It’s about us focusing on what we have to do to put ourselves in a situation to go on and win,” he said. “We’ve had two good days of practice and we’re getting prepared to battle on Sunday.”
In the Christmas Day game, the Eagles won, 33-25, after the Giants fought back from a 20-3 halftime deficit. They cut it to 20-18 in the third quarter on Adoree’ Jackson’s 76-yard pick-6. That was the closest they would get, falling short on Taylor’s last-second pass into the end zone that was intercepted.
When asked bigger-picture questions about the Giants this week, Taylor preferred to stay in the moment. General manager Joe Schoen, at his bye- week news conference, dismissed Taylor’s future with the Giants, saying only that he is on “an expiring contract.”
For the 34-year-old Taylor, the competitive drive still burns.
“I love to compete,” he said. “Every situation is different. But that’s what we look forward to, competing.”
Playing three quarterbacks — Daniel Jones, Taylor and Tommy DeVito — is not ideal in any season.
Offensive coordinator Mike Kafka was asked about the process when those are the circumstances.
“That’s a great question,” he said. “I think when you go through the preseason, you go through the training camp and OTAs and stuff, you really try to dive deep into not only the position strengths and weaknesses, the player strengths and weaknesses, but then what schematically we do as a group when they’re in there as well.
“Every group has injuries. But one thing that I’m proud of with our group is [that] they had the next-man-up mentality. Guys stepped up, young players, veteran guys had to step up, and that’s something that I’m really proud of our guys. They never flinched, they battled all the way through it, and I think our guys have come closer because of that.”
Kafka noted that in every year, a team develops its own story.
“Every season presents its own challenges,” he said. “Whether the record at the end of the season shows or not, every week is going to be a little bit different, there’s always a problem that presents itself, so you do your best to problem-solve it. That’s what you rely on your players and your coaching staff to do and continue to work through those issues. Every team is going through it, ours was no different. So that’s life in the NFL.”
Kimberly Jones covers the Giants for Newsday, a beat she first worked in the early 2000s before joining the YES Network to cover the Yankees. She worked for the NFL Network for more than a decade and has been heard semi-regularly on WFAN.
