The 5-10 Giants somehow still breathe east of the NFC when a week is left.
The latest NFC East games on Sunday paved the way for the Giants to keep their division title hopes alive. Billing-prone Dwayne Haskins was left on the bench when Washington missed the chance to reach the east with an ugly 20-13 home loss to Carolina.
The Giants also needed the Cowboys to defeat the Eagles and Dallas overcame a 14-3 opening hole to secure a 37-17 victory at AT&T Stadium.
The Giants must defeat Dallas (6-9) in Week 17 and make Philadelphia (4-10-1) beat Washington (6-9) next Sunday night to create a three-way tie at 6-10. Under this scenario, the Giants would win the tiebreaker based on a 4-2 division record. Washington would still win its first division title since 2015 with a win over the eliminated Eagles.
Washington missed their first chance to get to FedEx Field on Sunday against another eliminated opponent as Teddy Bridgewater and the Panthers (5-10) took a 20-0 lead in the first half and didn’t give up on that.
“What’s frustrating is that we didn’t play quality football,” Washington coach Ron Rivera said. “We are still in control of our destiny. That is the truth of the matter.
“We have one more game to play, and it’s a very important game.”
Haskins, who was fined $ 40,000 last week for partying without a mask in violation of COVID-19 protocols, was a disaster on his second straight outing instead of Alex Smith (calf).
Washington’s 2019 first-round pick was intercepted twice, upset once and finished 14-on-28 for 154 yards before falling to fourth-row Taylor Heinicke with Washington then, 20-6, in the fourth quarter.
“It simply came to our notice then. Very disappointing, “Haskins said, describing last week as” the toughest “of his life.” I wish I could go back and change something, but now it’s over. “
Heinicke, an Old Dominion product who appeared in six games (a start) for Carolina in 2018, tied Washington within 20-13 with a 29-yard pass to JD McKissic with 1:50 left, but the shot on the court was recovered by Panthers.
Meanwhile, the loser of the Philadelphia / Dallas game faced elimination, and turned out to be the Eagles (4-10-1).
The Eagles took a quick 14-3 lead, but Andy Dalton (377 passing yards) connected twice with Michael Gallup and another with rookie CeeDee Lamb for touchdowns with a 27-13 lead in the third. fourth.
Hurts, who finished with 342 passing yards and 69 on the ground, was intercepted on the Dallas goal line by Anthony Brown with 6:42 left, the first of his two picks in the fourth quarter. He also lost a fight in Cowboys territory in the absence of 3:54.
Lamb scored again in a 19-yard run, with 1:53 left to seal Dallas ’third straight win and hosted Sunday’s clash against the Giants at MetLife Stadium.
“If you resigned five, six weeks ago, we wouldn’t even want to be on our side,” Ezekiel Elliott said. “We are competitors. The whole team is. We didn’t get out. I have to win next week and I need a little help from the guys we just played.