So, this is the end of the unfortunate story of NFC East 2020:
The Giants take it to one of their two fiercest rivals, securing a 23-19 victory over the hated Cowboys. Against all the fibers of their being, against every grain of their blue soul, they congratulated their football season on the Eagles, who, if not 1A on the Giants ’most sought-after fan list, are certainly 1B.
But they needed the Eagles to bother the 1C: the Washington football team.
“I won’t be caught dead with an Eagles hat,” Giants receiver Sterling Shepard had said around 5 p.m., “but I’ll be rooting for them.”
And yet, who in their right mind could know that 6 and a half hours later, the Eagles, who, let’s be honest, over the years, have probably inspired more tantrums from Giants fans than the Cowboys and WFT combined, they would be even more hated, more insulted, more hated, more despised than ever.
First, three points lower in the third quarter, Eagles coach Doug Pederson dodged a chip-throwing field goal for fourth and four-goal.
Then he tiptoed.
Not literally. But instead of seeing how his intriguing quarterback Jalen Hurts might react to playing in the fourth quarter of a significant game (significant for the WFT, anyway), he brought in his third-string quarterback, his teammate. called Nate Sudfeld.
If you’ve never heard of Nate Sudfeld, you won’t be alone.
Just for now his name will come out of the tongue out there: Nate # @ # $ & # Sudfeld.
Sudfeld did what you would imagine Sudfeld would do. He threw a spike. He hit the ball. He seemed every now and then the non-prospect, with 26 attempts to overcome the race that would seem. The Eagles got on their knees with a full quarter to go. Washington won the game, 20-14, and the NFC East with a 7-9 record, and host Tom Brady next week.
The giants?
Look, they had 16 weeks before this to make sure they could finish better than 6-10. Outside of New York there will be few tears shed for them. And look: it’s not up to the Eagles to make the giants feel good about themselves. Just not.
However …
“Why, in God’s green land, is Jalen Hurts not at stake?” tweeted Darius Slayton.
Tweeted Golden Tate: “I think eagles just hate us more than Washington.”
And Blake Martinez: “……”
It was strange enough how the Giants ’own game had ended, with a football on the ground, with a season reduced to the random bounces of an oblong brown missile. Of course, that game couldn’t end routinely, just as the season would never end routinely, this season of the Giants that looked like five different seasons became one.
Wayne Gallman made a splendid play, beating the scoreboard first, and that should have been game, set, match and the Giants could slip into the fuzzy Eagles socks for a few hours.
Of course, this was not possible. Of course, the ball came out of Gallman’s hands and landed on the turf, and while it looked like Gallman had landed on the ball, it landed on his ass (of course), there was a particularly nervous moment. when one officer pointed out that it was a Giants ball and another said it was a Cowboys ball.
“I wanted to slap Wayne in the head,” said security giants Logan Ryan a little later, “but he got the ball back.”
“I’m sorry I caused so much drama,” Gallman would say.
Drama?
I had no idea what kind of drama was yet to come.
When these giants were 0-5 and 1-7, they would all have offered their kingdom for a good drama, for some drama that defines the season, as opposed to the drama of the will-the-darkness-always-dissipated that had followed this season. Drama? After a terrible start, after a sublime half, after some brutal last few weeks, they could have a little more drama.
And he would also tolerate the drama coming once they had dealt with the end of the bargain on Sunday afternoon. They fired the Cowboys and while coach Joe Judge and most of the Giants players haven’t lived with the shadow of the Damned Star as much as some others in the organization, that made it a little sweeter. .
“There were a lot of smiles and hugs (socially distanced hugs) in the locker room afterwards,” the judge said, and it must be believed that the strongest and happiest of the congratulators was John Mara, co-owner of the Giants, He lived and died with these Giants-Cowboys games for most of the 60s.
“We came in today and we had a significant game,” the judge said, “and the boys took care of the business.”
They took care of the business and then had to wait. And they probably wouldn’t have believed you if you had told them how everything would work at the end of this wait. Because how could they? How could anyone?