Eagles, Giants more than a simple tale of two familiar foes in playoffs

Donovan McNabb has led the Eagles to a 5-1 mark since getting benched in Philadelphia's blowout loss to Baltimore back in November. Rich Gabrielson/Icon SMI

Everybody knows the Eagles are the new Giants. That is, the current Eagles are last year's Giants. Or maybe they're not. We compare:

• The Eagles came into the playoffs hot. After the notorious Donovan McNabb benching on Nov. 23 in Baltimore, which left the Eagles with a 5-5-1 record, they have won five of six games. That included a 44-6 beatdown of the Cowboys (who were supposed to play the role of last year's Giants in the playoffs until they didn't) in the last week of the regular season and a 26-14 win over the Vikings in Minneapolis in the first round of the playoffs. "I never felt like we were down and out,'' Eagles head coach Andy Reid said this week. "I will say that, the last game, we had to have a couple stars line up right. Anything's possible in this league, and I've been around long enough to know that.''

However, as Reid points out, after the Eagles laid an egg (bird metaphor there) and lost to the Redskins, 10-3 on Dec. 21 in Washington, they needed an enormous amount of help on the last weekend of the season. Most notably, the Bucs had to lose to the Raiders at home. As Eagles wideout Reggie Brown said to me last week, "You just figure 'Come on, that's not going to happen.'''

And really ... how hot were the Giants last year? They put together a stellar playoff run, culminating with the Super Bowl win over the unbeaten Patriots. But the Giants were 7-4 after 11 games in '07, not 5-5-1; and they had won six consecutive games in September and October. They went 3-3 down the stretch and except for the try-hard 38-35 loss to the Patriots in the final game of the season, nobody would have been calling them dangerous when they went to Tampa in the wild-card round or when they went to Dallas for the second.

The "hot team'' comparison is inviting, but misleading. The Giants didn't get hot until the playoffs started.

• The Eagles play sound and vigorous defense, which will keep them in games. They gave up 50 points in the final five games of the regular season; in the five before that, they gave up 106; and 120 in the preceding five. That's improvement easily measured. Everything flows from Brian Dawkins, the Eagles' 35-year-old free safety, who was widely perceived as finished in the first month of the season. Since then, Dawkins has returned to playing like a linebacker in the deep middle. Last Sunday, he laid huge hits on both Adrian Peterson and Chester Taylor that established the tone for the game. Linebackers Akeem Jordan, Stewart Bradley and Chris Gocong are solid and underrated.

The two defenses are mirror images because Giants coordinator Steve Spagnuolo worked in Philadelphia under Eagles coordinator Jim Johnson. They think alike, which is to say they bring the heat.

But let's be careful here. The Giants' 2007 postseason defense was epic, led by the front four, in particular Justin Tuck, who grew from a potentially dominant player into an actually dominant one in a single month. The Giants won the Super Bowl not just because David Tyree pinned a ball to his helmet, but also because Spagnuolo's defense crushed Tom Brady all evening in Arizona. (Long after the Super Bowl, I had a long conversation with Dallas offensive coordinator Jason Garrett, who said as soon as the Giants got to the Super Bowl he found himself wondering how the Patriots were going to control the front four, "because that's the problem we always had.'').

The Eagles have a good, improving defense. A year ago the Giants were immovable.

• Quarterback play: No similarity at all. Put aside Reid's benching of McNabb in Baltimore -- McNabb this week called his play since that day "coincidental,'' which seems like a stretch -- and you're talking about one of the best quarterbacks of his generation. McNabb has righted himself and played well down the stretch (10 TD passes and just two interceptions in six games), but it would have been a surprise if he hadn't.

Eli Manning is now getting endless praise (and deservedly so), but at midseason a year ago -- just his third as a full-time starter -- he was getting ripped as a potential bust. From a home loss to Dallas on Nov. 11 to a win at Buffalo two days before Christmas, Manning threw six touchdown passes and 10 interceptions in seven games. He was terrific against New England in the regular season finale, and had a 123.2 passer rating in the postseason, but all of that was a very pleasant surprise. No comparison to what is expected of McNabb.

• X-factor: Last Sunday in the Metrodome, the Eagles were in command for virtually the entire game, but lacking a power running game or a big-play wide receiver, didn't finish off the Vikings until Brian Westbook scored on a 71-yard screen pass from McNabb with 6:53 to play. Westbrook separates the Eagles from opponents. He is banged-up, yet game; dangerous, yet underappreciated. Two years ago, when Jeff Garcia took the Eagles into the postseason, the Eagles rode Westbrook hard. They will ride him hard again on Sunday, trying to force the Giants to cover him solo with linebackers and safeties, which are exceptionally tough matchups.

A year ago, the Giants had -- and still have -- no player like Westbrook. Derrick Ward? Ahmad Bradshaw? Maybe on both counts, but whom would you take? As Dawkins said last week in Minneapolis, "[The Giants] are not a tricky team. [Tom Coughlin] isn't a tricky coach. 'Here's what we do; try to stop us.''' They want to punish a defense with a healthy Brandon Jacobs and the best run-blocking offensive line in the NFL.

Last year they also wanted to stretch the secondary with Plaxico Burress, but we all know what's happened to that strategy. "He was a huge factor,'' Ravens defensive coordinator Rex Ryan told me in November. "If Eli was in trouble, he could just throw it out there and Plaxico could get it because he's so long. That made it hard to pressure Eli.'' Now the Giants will try to do the same thing with Domenik Hixon, but Hixon is no Burress. Still, the approach is very different from the Eagles.

Different years. Different teams. Potentially a great game, but not because the Eagles are this year's Giants. They aren't.