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Coming into Sunday’s game, the Philadelphia Eagles had turned the football over just 12 times all season. That presented a huge challenge for the New York Giants, who need every advantage humanly possible to win games these days.
As things turned out, the Eagles fed right into the Giants’ hands as they mysteriously went away from running the ball — something they appeared to be able to do at will in the game — and decided to throw the football down the field. Big mistake.
The Giants made quarterback Jalen Hurts pay by picking him off three times, all in the red zone. Hurts had thrown just five interceptions all season. The Giants also forced the Eagles to fumble once.
“It’s always a combination of everything,” head coach Joe Judge explained after the game. “Number one, can you stop them and put them in a position where they have to throw. Then when they do throw, can you get enough pressure on that? Even if it’s not directly on that play, does that accumulate throughout the game, that they feel that pressure in their head and that internal clock running.
“Then, it comes down to playing assignment football on the backend as well, with Xavier (McKinney) and those guys in terms of breaking and making the interceptions.
“Obviously, Tae (Crowder) had one at the end of the half, but it’s just being in the right place at the right time and playing with good discipline. If it’s man, you’ve got to play your leverage, you’ve got to look through your man. If it’s zone, you’ve got to get the right depth, right zone, you’ve got to make sure that you’ve keying the quarterback and you’re moving the right way. You’ve got to play your assignment. Really as a whole, the plays come to you. When you play your assignment, play with the right technique, right discipline, you play flying around to the ball.”
The Giants have a takeaway in each of their first 11 games this season. They haven’t done that since 2005, Tom Coughlin’s second year as head coach.
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