You know what?
We were owed a weekend like this. You bet we were. We’ve had to sit idly by the past few years as Philadelphia, our vile neighbor in the Northeast corridor, experienced unparalleled prosperity.
The Eagles won one Super Bowl, made another last year. The Phillies came within two games of a world championship two years ago, fell one game shy of a return trip to the World Series last year. The 76ers are perennial contenders, and have the reigning MVP. Villanova even won a pair of bookend NCAA Tournaments. All while we sat, and steamed, and stewed in our endless mud puddle of mediocrity.
Then Friday night, the Knicks went into Wells Fargo Center and pummeled Joel Embiid and the Sixers, 128-92.
Saturday afternoon, St. John’s played a campus game at Villanova’s Finneran Pavilion — a building in which they hadn’t won in since 1993 — and stomped the Wildcats, 81-71.
And then, Sunday, the coup de grâce: the Giants broke the Eagles.
Oh, the Iggles were bloodied and bruised and beaten up even before they walked into MetLife Stadium. They’d already lost four of their past five, and had gone from showpiece to spit-show faster than any team in recent memory.
But it was the Giants’ supreme pleasure to splinter what remained of the Eagles’ self esteem, rolling to a 24-0 lead by halftime, cruising to a 27-10 victory. It was a beating so complete that Eagles coach Nick Sirianni white-flagged the second half, pulling whatever regulars were still standing.
There were a lot of green Eagles jerseys who walked into MetLife, and a lot of green Eagles faces three hours later as they left, sickened by what their team has become. The Giants were the ones who played like the team with first place on the line Sunday afternoon, despite the record, despite the surfeit of sadness that had preceded it.
“You only get so many opportunities to play at this level,” Giants receiver Wan’Dale Robinson said at game’s end. “You’ve got to take this opportunity and take nothing for granted.”
Robinson was one of many Giants stars Sunday, catching five balls for 85 yards. He is one of the foundational pieces around whom the Giants will hope to rise out of the dust of a mostly disappointing 6-11 season.
That is the sobering subtext to this marvelous New York weekend. The Sixers are still more of a title contender than the Knicks are, no matter how much the roles were reversed Friday night. Villanova is still farther along than the Johnnies, regardless of what a feel-good afternoon it was on the Main Line Saturday.
And, look: for all the misery surrounding the Eagles, they’re the team that’ll still has a season to look forward to this week, they’re still the team with a playoff date in Tampa against the Buccaneers. The Giants will toss their belongings into Baggies on Monday and disappear for a while. The Eagles are still where the Giants want to be.
Yet … 50 weeks ago, the disparity between these teams seemed as vast as the length of the route from the George Washington Bridge to the Ben Franklin Bridge, with all the evidence necessary being the 38-7 shellacking the Eagles enjoyed in the divisional playoff round. The gap is much narrower now.
Better, while the Eagles are awash in a flood of dysfunction, the Giants never did fall into the abyss under Brian Daboll. If anything, Giants fans will spend the next few days lamenting three games — at Buffalo, the Jets, and last week against the Rams — that could’ve turned, should’ve turned, 6-11 into 9-8; the Packers made the playoffs at 9-8 (and the Giants beat the Packers).
For a season that so often felt like a complete fiasco, they were that close to authoring a completely different narrative. So Sunday felt like more than just a consolation prize proffered from team to fan.
“We didn’t have the season we wanted,” Saquon Barkley said. “We wanted to go out on top with a win and we were able to get that.”
If Sunday was the last hurrah for Barkley as a Giant he did his share, gaining 97 yards from scrimmage and running for a couple of touchdowns. And in truth, it still seems hard to envision the Giants being better without him. We shall see.
“One year is so different than the next,” Daboll said. “We’re going to enjoy this week. We went 3-3 in the division. We made some explosive plays and played a complete football game and I’m happy for the guys. It’s a long time between now and the next season but I’m proud of way the guys competed and fought.”
Until then, the Giants had Sunday, part of a wonderful weekend when New York finally stood up to the bullies from Broad Street, for a few days no longer the cowards of the county. Yeah. We were owed this much, at least.
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