Don’t be fooled by the familiar markings of a football gridiron. Lincoln Financial Field actually is a House of Horrors.
Take it from the Ghost of Evan Engram’s Dropped Pass haunting the 29-yard line. Or the Spirit of Victor Cruz’s Agonizing Screams spooking the end zone. Or the Pigskin Frankenstein said to live beneath the surface at midfield ever since Jake Elliott’s 61-yard field goal.
The Giants haven’t just lost nine straight road games to the Eagles. They’ve had their guts wrenched, hearts broken and minds numbed under five different head coaches during the longest road losing streak to one opponent in franchise history and the eighth-longest active streak by one team visiting another, according to Elias Sports Bureau. No player on the roster has won in Philadelphia wearing a Giants uniform
“It’s definitely something I want to get done this week,” fourth-year receiver Darius Slayton said. “We haven’t not played well. We just haven’t finished the game. You remember them all, but it doesn’t affect my mindset going in there.”
Head coach Brian Daboll is telling his players that nothing matters except how the Giants and Eagles perform Saturday in the NFC divisional playoffs. Not the (exaggerated) difficulty of beating the same team three times in a season. Not the history that the Giants have reached the Super Bowl in the last three seasons in which they won a playoff game. And not the gory details of the nine-game slide.
For example …
The 27-0 loss in 2014 that started it all, when Cruz tore the patellar tendon in his right knee leaping for a fourth-down pass. The sound of Cruz in pain and the sight of him hiding his tears in his hands as he left on a cart flattened the Giants as the Eagles recorded their first shutout in 18 years. Cruz didn’t play another game for 700 days and only scored one more touchdown, with his time as a phenom ending in a flash.
Or the 24-19 loss in 2016 that marked the unveiling of the Color Rush jerseys and the delay of clinching a playoff spot because Eli Manning threw three interceptions on a career-high 63 passes. It’s the furthest the skid dates for any current Giant (Landon Collins and the injured Sterling Shepherd).
There have been comebacks wasted, like in 2017, when Manning threw three touchdown passes in a span of 5:27 in the fourth quarter to turn a 14-0 deficit into a 21-14 lead. A complete momentum swing offset when the Eagles converted two field goals in the final 51 seconds, winning 27-24 on the longest game-winning kick by a rookie in NFL history: Jake Elliott’s 61-yarder as time expired.
There have been too many comebacks allowed. The Giants blew leads of 16, 14 and 11 over three straight years, when the core of the current team was first assembled. How does that happen?
With the help of strange personnel deployment and turnovers, the hallmarks of a 25-22 loss in 2018. Saquon Barkley only had five second-half touches (after 15 in the first half) and Manning threw a game-shifting interception at the 2-yard line after the Eagles cut into a 19-3 deficit.
With an injured starting quarterback — Manning started over Daniel Jones for the first time in 12 weeks — and three times as many punts (six) as first downs (two) after halftime as a 17-3 lead turned into a 23-17 overtime loss in 2019.
With opportunity literally slipping through the fingers of Engram, who in 2020 had one pass deflect off his hands for an interception and another fall for an incompletion. The second, with 2:11 remaining in the fourth quarter, forced a punt instead of a first down that would’ve forced the Eagles to use all of their timeouts and was sandwiched between the two touchdowns that made a 21-10 lead evaporate and result in a 22-21 loss.
“It’s like a fresh start, a whole new season,” said Barkley, the team’s longest active consecutively tenured player. “Whatever happened two, four, five, eight [years ago], that’s all in the past.”
There are standard-fare defeats, like 27-7 in 2015, 34-10 in 2021 and 22-16 just two weeks ago, when the Giants’ backups injected a surprising scare into the NFC East champions as the starters sat to preserve health for the playoffs.
It adds up to put the Giants in the company of the Lions who have the longest active streak (13 straight losses at the 49ers) and longest historic streak (24 straight at the Packers, 1992-2014), per Elias Sports Bureau. The Lions likened their streak-busting win at the Packers to winning the Super Bowl. If the Giants stop theirs, they will be one win away from the actual Super Bowl.
“We’ve been close, but I don’t even think about that history when I’m out there,” fifth-year left guard Nick Gates said. “It’s a tough place to win because they’re a good team and their crowd brings it. One year, I saw a 6-year-old kid double-birding me with his dad sitting right next to him with the proudest look on his face. Where else does that happen? I’ll never forget that as the funniest thing ever.”
Some things will never change about the way the Giants are received in Philadelphia. Will the way they exit be any different than the last nine times?
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