DeMeco Ryans' game-changing strip for the Eagles

THE PLAY that turned the game looked really improbable, like, "How'd he do that?" to the naked eye. Slowing down the replay still didn't make it ordinary.

The Eagles trailed, 7-0, and it was about to get worse, Giants' first-and-10 at the Eagles' 23. Giants tight end Larry Donnell, the game-winning-touchdown-catch hero of his team's thrilling victory over the 49ers the previous week, had both strong hands around the Eli Manning pass, and he seemed to have Eagles linebacker DeMeco Ryans boxed out.

Ryans was trying to reach in, over Donnell's left shoulder. Somehow he got his right hand in there, and the ball kept moving and moving until Ryans pried it away, falling as he gathered the football into his midsection.

Who is strong enough to do that, with one hand?

"He's our Mufasa, he's the leader of our defense; he's the leader of this football team," Chip Kelly said afterward of Ryans, who later recovered a fumble, and was playing his best game since last November's Achilles' tear, when he left in the second quarter with a hamstring injury. Ryans said afterward he could have returned if needed.

"You have to have the will to come down with it," Ryans said. "We needed that change. You kind of get deflated as a defense when they come down and take that opening drive for a score. And they were headed back down to score again. We had to turn the tables a little bit."

"We both had our hands on the ball at the same time, but then I wasn't able to get the ball good, and he just ended up making a good play," Donnell said afterward.

Giants coach Tom Coughlin still sounded angry about the play Tuesday, when he recapped it during a conference call with reporters.

"They call it an interception, it's really nothing but a strip of the ball that we've got two hands on, they've got one hand on - they strip the ball out, rip it away," Coughlin said. He went on to narrate how frustrated he was to see the Giants keep the ensuing Eagles drive alive with a dumb penalty.

* A big key to the game was the Giants not scoring any points off four Eagles turnovers. "I think that's a very, very unusual circumstance in any game," Tom Coughlin told reporters Tuesday. "We didn't take advantage of anything, and that's disappointing." For Coughlin, it looks like not taking advantage. For the Eagles' defense, it looks more like a display of mental toughness and resolve.

* Sam Bradford was under center on the touchdown throw to Riley Cooper, after the Eagles pretty much ran exclusively from that setup in previous weeks. Monday night, they threw from it repeatedly.

* The Eagles are second in the NFL with 16 takeaways. (Denver, another team whose quarterback is struggling, has 17.) They are tied for the league lead with eight fumble recoveries.

* On the Giants' fourth-and-1 play that lost 2 yards, near the end of the first quarter, Brandon Graham fought his way through Nikita Whitlock - Jon Gruden's favorite player of the evening - and bulldozed Rashad Jennings.

* Vinny Curry entered the game with no sacks, left with 1.5 after terrorizing Giants guard Geoff Schwartz. Curry played only 19 snaps.

* The Giants managed one third-down conversion in the second half, in which they possessed the ball for 10 minutes, 13 seconds.

* The undefeated Carolina Panthers have a strong defense, which is allowing 18.8 points per game, seventh-best in the NFL - right behind the Eagles, who are giving up 18.3.

* The Eagles used two tight ends on DeMarco Murray's 12-yard touchdown run, on which Murray only had to stiff-arm an overmatched safety to score. Both Brent Celek and Zach Ertz got key blocks.

That slamming the quarterback to the ground long after he has released the ball was a penalty?

Giants defensive lineman Damontre Moore, for one, whose roughing of Sam Bradford kept alive the Eagles' first touchdown drive.

"Honestly, it was just me having a poor football I.Q. and not being aware of the rules of dumping him, because I did dump him," Moore said afterward.

Moore is in his third season as an NFL player, after being drafted in the third round out of Texas A&M. Tuesday, Tom Coughlin was asked whether he trusts Moore to avoid such penalties in the future. "I can't honestly say that," Coughlin replied.

The Eagles haven't allowed an individual 100-yard rusher in their last 18 games. The Giants are the only NFL team without a 100-yard rusher in any of their six games this season.

Sam Bradford was the main reason the Eagles didn't put 40 or more points on the Giants Monday night, but he wasn't the only reason. Mental errors still dog the offense, from Jason Kelce snapping the ball while Bradford is trying to keep Jordan Matthews from going in motion, to Riley Cooper breaking off a route just as Bradford decides to throw it to him deep.

The touchdown that made it 24-7 and put the game out of reach came eight snaps after the Giants' Nikita Whitlock ran into Donnie Jones during a punt. Why were the Eagles punting? On second-and-1 from the Birds' 24, Lane Johnson was whistled for a false start.

Two snaps later, on third-and-2, Bradford's pass to Matthews fell incomplete, but it wouldn't have mattered, since Josh Huff lined up incorrectly, covering up the tight end without making sure he was on the line of scrimmage when the ball was snapped.

"The presnap penalties are the ones you can't accept," Chip Kelly said.

The Eagles have done some solid work in straightening out their run game, but everything else offensively remains a work in progress.

Blog: ph.ly/Eagletarian