Eagles executed onside kick with 10 players
The Eagles only had 10 players on the field when they executed the critical onside kick in the fourth quarter of Sunday's win against the Giants.
Eagles executed onside kick with 10 players
Sheil Kapadia, Philly.com
The Eagles didn't even need all 11 players to execute Sunday's key onside kick in the fourth quarter against the Giants.
Ralph Vacchiano of the New York Daily News mentioned in his article today that the Eagles had only 10 players on their special-teams unit when David Akers' kick was recovered by Riley Cooper. I just re-watched it, and he's right.
Akers had four players to his right: Moise Fokou, Akeem Jordan, Daniel Te'o-Nesheim and Colt Anderson.
And five to his left: Eldra Buckley, Omar Gaither, JaMar Chaney, Riley Cooper and Dimitri Patterson.
Total: 10.
So was this a mistake by the Eagles, or did they intentionally only have 10 players on the field? The Giants think it was the latter.
"They did something good," Giants special-teams captain Chase Blackburn told Vacchiano. "They ran a guy off right in front of everybody and they're all looking at each other saying, 'We've (only) got 10.' So we're doing the same thing, trying to recount. And then you forget about that 'alert' a little bit. That's kind of what happened."
Wow.
The TV cameras from Fox do not catch the 11th man running off the field for the Eagles, so I can't identify who it was. But I'm sure Bobby April will be asked about it on Thursday.
Just another strange nugget from a strange game.
ANDY AND THE CHALLENGES
Former NFL VP of Officiating Mike Pereira, who now works for Fox, has confirmed what we already knew: Andy Reid had another bad day with the challenge flag on Sunday.
Per Pereira, Reid should have challenged the Hakeem Nicks catch in the first quarter and the DeSean Jackson fumble in the fourth quarter. The Nicks catch went for 22 yards on a third down, and the Giants ended up scoring a touchdown on the drive.
And the Giants scored 7 points off the Jackson fumble in the fourth, making it a 31-10 game.
One note from Pereira that was interesting: If Giants linebacker Jonathan Goff had only touched Jackson's handwarmer, he would not have been down. But replays showed that Goff grazed Jackson's back as well.
Pereira says the refs got the Jeremy Maclin fumble at the end of the first half wrong. He said it should have been ruled an incomplete pass. Eli Manning, of course, hit Nicks for a touchdown on the Giants' ensuing possession as they took a 24-3 lead going into halftime.
COUSIN BILLY REJOICES
This video is making the rounds and is pretty classic. I don't think it needs any introduction, but I will warn that there is one bad, four-letter word used.
If you missed it from earlier Tuesday morning, I posted a Q&A on the Eagles' playoff scenarios.
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i have no idea who "cousin billy" is but that was great.— liberty_bell- This was staged. The guy with the camera doesn't care that the dude is blocking the TV? Also, the dude runs out of the house when jackson hadn't even crossed the 10 yard line.— dbone
Comment removed.- I don't think this was staged. The time on the comcast box looks right and you don't have to look through the camera when you're recording. He could have very well been holding the camera to the side and lower than his actual viewpoint. And Philly_Mike, I'm sure he was recording it because it was the last play of the game. He may have done the same thing in OT and recorded that.
On another note, these fans aren't too smart. The new overtime rule is for playoffs only. If the Eagles kicked a field goal in OT the game would be over.— looneyj3 - Bears mentioning again - Andy didn't throw the challenge flag because it would have spoiled the ending....— dlscholt
- If that was in fact Bobby April's plan then I'll chalk it up to the first thing he's done all year to actually live up to his rep as a special teams 'guru'
- Comment removed.
Um, this is the Eagles...how did he know that the TD run was not going to be called back for a penalty?- I was thinking the same thing. Illegal blocks and holds are common on TD returns. I was waiting for the dreaded flag sighting myself.
— phillychaos - "If Giants linebacker Jonathan Goff had only touched Jackson's handwarmer, he would not have been down."
I heard Pereira say that during the broadcast, but I'm not sure it's true. Surely it's a piece of equipment that one can be tackled with and I'm sure if the defender had just grabbed the hand warmer and tackled Jackson that that would have counted as a tackle. Just thinking out loud.— Falkirk - Comment removed.
- Replace Uncle Billy with an Eagles fan of your choice, and you'd have gotten the same reaction! Classic!
As for overturning Nicks reception, it would have been a waste of a challenge. Same thing happend last week at Dallas and the stupid refs upheld the call on the field.— dax - The Giants wish it was staged, because the Birds being one man short makes it all the more embarrassing...— Jangocat
- I'm with eaglephanatic, he was awfully confident in someone not doing something boneheaded! I always wait at least a few seconds these days to see if a flag comes out before getting too excited about... well, miracles :-)— dughas
- Akers was also offsides in the onside kick. His right, plant foot was beyond the ball when he kicked it in order to get the angle he needed. Not complaining, but maybe rubbing it in a little to Giants fans. :o)— awl
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