Mike Vick was turnover free for the first time thi season. Photo by Pete Lerro contrastphotography.com

If
the second-chance kick booted by Giants field goal kicker Lawrence Tynes traveled
just a measly two yards further, giving Big Blue a last-second win over the
Eagles, Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora’s grin would not only been as wide
as the Hudson River, all anyone would have seen on his teeth would be the word
in big bold letters “T-W-E-E-T.”

But
Tynes missed his 54-yarder for the second time with just 15 seconds left in the
game after an ill-advised timeout taken by Eagles head coach Andy Reid in an
attempt freeze the Giants kicker.

The
Eagles (3-1) pulled out a 19-17 win over their bitter rival from the north, the
Tweeter board was quiet and the Giants limped back to the Big Apple 2-2.

And
Big Red admitted dodged a bullet that even he could feel as it whizzed by his
head.

“When
you’re surrounded by 66,000 people that want to probably rip your throat out at
that time,” Reid admitted in a rare moment of real openness. “Yes I did (wish
he hadn’t called the time out). That’s about 20-fold what Custer felt.”

This
was one f the few times players can get a way with questioning their coach and
not get any flack for it.

“It
was crazy,” said DeSean Jackson, who had six catches for 98 yards and a
touchdown. “Honestly, the first one when he missed, I was like ‘ugh’ when Coach
Reid called timeout. But, the second one looked like it was straight in the
middle, and I thought it was going to go in, but it came up a little bit short.
It was nerve-racking, but we got the win, so that’s all that matters. It was a
great game and we have a lot to learn from it. Like I said, when we got into
the red zone, there was a lot of opportunities where we got thrown off. When
we’re playing high-powered teams, especially in our division, we have to
execute and come through on plays like that.”

The
first quarter was scoreless. The only real highlight for the Eagles was a
couple of tough catches by Jackson and Brent Celek, who finished with four
catches for 57 yards.

The
Giants were flat overall and neither team threatened to score.

The
same back and forth play continued until the Eagles started a drive with 6:04
to go in the half.

Vick
broke the scoring ice with a 19-yard touchdown pass to Jackson capping an
11-play, 70 yard drive that saw Vick also hit Damaris Johnson for 17 yards,
LeSean McCoy for 12 yards and an 18-yard run by McCoy.

That
would be the Eagles lone TD of the day.

Eli
Manning drove his team down to the Eagles six-yard line only to see the drive
stall and the Giants settled for 25-yard field goal.

The
Eagles took the opening drive of the third quarter and drove all the way to the
Giants one-yard line only to see the drive stall after three straight failed
McCoy runs.

The
Birds settled for a 20-yard Alex Henery field goal.

Later
in the third quarter Manning would throw a 14-yard TD pass to Victor Cruz to
make the score tie the game 10-10.

After
a pair of Henery field goals, Manning struck again, this time a six-yard scoring
strike to Bear Bascoe to take a 17-16 lead with 6:45 left in the fourth quarter

Then
as he has done in both Eagles wins this year, Vick led the Eagles downfield 75
yards (32 rushing yards by McCoy) to the Giants two-yard line only to see
another drive stall.

Henery’s
26-yard field goal made the score 19-17 Birds with 1:52 left in the fourth.

Manning
was able to drive his team to the Eagles 26-yard line. The drive was helped by
two pass interference calls on Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and Nnamdi Asomugha.

But
instead of running plays to set a potential game-winning field goal, Giants
head coach Tom Coughlin called a pass play to Ramses Barden who was flagged for
offensive pass interference trying to keep the poorly thrown ball from being
intercepted.

That
10-yard penalty made Tynes’ job much more difficult and it proved to be a fatal
mistake for the Giants.

“We
were in field goal range at one time, and the thought of running and then
clocking the ball was a definite thought,” Coughlin said. “Quite frankly,
that’s what we were doing on the next snap, but we never got to that. It’s
always a woulda, coulda, shouda, you know? When you do run like that, there is
[the fact that] you’re going to waste downs and then you’re going to have that
thought of probably ending up kicking it right from that spot, which would have
been obviously much better than it was, making it a 54-yarder. The thing that’s
difficult there is obvious. We had to take the timeouts at the other end of the
field and we march with no timeouts and did a decent job of that. And tried to
continue to move it closer so that the field goal was a very makeable one. [K]
Lawrence [Tynes] has done an outstanding job this year, and so we tried to,
what we thought were safe calls, and the pass interference was one of those
things that when you saw it happen, you just shake your head because we’re
right back where we started from. I was worried that we would make some kind of
play in bounds and then not have enough time to clock it.”

The
Eagles special teams kick coverage was brutal all game.

The
Giants had kickoff returns of 33, 48, 45, 53, TB, 15,  yards for an average of 36.2 yards per return.
Either Giants rookie David Wilson is a future Hall of Fame kick returner or the
Eagles can’t cover. Wilson thinks it is a little of both. The rookie out of
Virginia Tech was asked if he thought he was going to return a couple of the
kickoffs for touchdowns.

“I
really did think I was going to return a couple of the kicks back and they made
a couple of shoe string tackles and brought me down,” Wilson said. “Anybody
that watched the game saw I came close a couple of times.  I kept talking with the coaches and they were
really thinking I could bring one back and it was close. The coaches watched
film this week and felt I could return one and it almost came to fruition.”

The
Eagles ran the ball well rushing for a team total of 191 yards with McCoy
coming up with 123 yards on 23 carries.

Most
important, the were turnover free. Vick talked about on playing with a focus on
ball security.

“Yeah,
I didn’t turn the ball over,” Vick said. “I just played smarter. The thing is
in this game you can’t force opportunities against the defense, you have to let
it come. I’ll be honest, missing the preseason did affect me to a certain
extent, but now I’m getting into my groove and seeing the field a little
better. The guys around me are helping me and that’s important.”

Both
teams achieved many of the goals they set out for coming into the game: the
Giant kept McCoy out of the end zone, Manning’s uniform was clean after the
game. The Eagles were turnover free, they ran the ball well.

Was
it just a matter of luck?

“I
think it (close play) happens in every game,” safety Nate Allen said. “You’re
going to make plays, you’re going to have plays work against you. Things are
going to break down sometimes…they are professionals too. They are going to
make plays – so at the end of the night it’s just a mater of getting the ‘W’…that’s the main thing. It’s hard to win on this level but the bottom line is to
get the win any way you can.”