This is how the miserable story of the 2020 NFC East ends:
The Giants take it to one of their two fiercest rivals, claiming a 23-19 victory over the hated Cowboys. Against every fiber of their being, against every grain of their blue-colored soul, they recommend their football season to the Eagles, who are definitely 1B if they are not 1A on the list of the giant fans.
But they needed the Eagles to upset 1C – the Washington Football Team.
“I will not be caught dead in an Eagles hat,” Giant receiver Sterling Shepard said at about five o’clock, “but I will root for them.”
And yet, who would have known with the right mind that the Eagles – who, let’s be honest – over the years probably inspired more attacks from giant fans than the Cowboys and WFT combined – would be even more disgusted, more scolded , more disgusting, more contemptible than ever.
First, with three points in the third quarter, Eagles coach Doug Pederson scored a target shooting field goal for the fourth and goal of the four.
Then he stomped.
Not literally. But instead of watching his intriguing young quarterback, Jalen Hurts, respond to play in the fourth quarter of a meaningful game – at least significant for the WFT – he has his third-string quarterback named Nate Sudfeld , introduced.
If you’ve never heard of Nate Sudfeld, you were not alone.
Just for the time being, his name will roll off his tongue here: Nate # @ # $ & # Sudfeld.
Sudfeld did what you would think Sudfeld would do. He throws a pick. He fiddles with the ball. He looked like the non-prospect with 26 career attempts would look under his belt. The Eagles took a knee with a full quarter to go. Washington won the game, 20-14, and the NFC East by a 7-9 record, and host Tom Brady next week.
The giants?
Look, they had 16 weeks before this one to make sure they could finish better than 6-10. Outside of New York, there will be few tears for them. And look: it’s not up to the Eagles to make the Giants feel good about themselves. It’s just not.
Still …
“Why is Jalen Hurts on God’s green earth not at stake?” tweeted Darius Slayton.
Tweet Golden Tate: “I think the Eagles hate us just more than Washington.”
And Blake Martinez: “……”
It was strange enough how the giants’ own game ended, with a football on the ground, with a season reduced to the random bounce of an elongated brown missile. Of course, that game may not end regularly, the same as the season would never end regularly, this Giants season, which felt like about five different seasons being one.
Wayne Gallman played a great game by passing the first point down, and it had to be game, set, fit, and let the Giants all slip into their vague Eagles socks for a few hours.
This, of course, was not possible. Of course, the ball slipped out of Gallman’s hands and landed on the grass, and even though Gallman seemed to land on the ball – landed on his butt (OF COURSE!) – there was a particularly nervous moment when one official pointed it out. that it was Giants ball and another said it was Cowboys ball.
“I wanted to slap Wayne in the back of the head because he was fidgeting,” Logan Ryan, the giant’s safety, would say a little later, “but he got the ball back.”
“I’m sorry I caused so much drama,” Gallman would say.
Drama?
He had no idea what kind of drama was yet to come.
When these giants were 0-5 and 1-7, they would all have offered their kingdom for some good drama, for a season-defining drama, as opposed to the will-the-darkness-always-disappearing drama that followed them in this season. Drama? After a terrible start, after a sublime remedy, after a cruel last few weeks, they were able to swallow a little more drama.
And would the drama also tolerate coming as soon as they made sure of their end of the bargain on Sunday afternoon. They fired the Cowboys, and although coach Joe Judge and most of the Giants players did not live as long as some others in the organization with the shadow of the Damned Star, it did make it a little extra sweet.
“There were a lot of smiles and hugs – socially distant hugs – in the locker room,” Judge said, and you have to believe that the loudest and happiest of the greetings was John Mara, the co-owner of the Giants, alive and dead with these Giants Cowboys games for most of 60 years.
“We came in today and we had a meaningful game,” Judge said, “and the guys took care of business.”
They took care of business, and then they had to wait. And they probably would not have believed you if you had told them how it would play out at the end of the waiting period. Because how could they? How could anyone?