They needed this one bad.
By the time the Eagles took the field on Thursday night against the Giants, their playoff chances were already long gone. They had left themselves with no way to secure a winning record and they really had nothing left to play for.
Except pride. Except for the feeling of playing 60 minutes of football and coming away with a win.
"This team don't quit," Fletcher Cox said.
He's right. It wasn't pretty. The Eagles were out-gained 470-286 by the Giants. They scored just three points in the entire second half. And it seemed like late in the game, the Giants were playing against the clock just as much as the Eagles. There will be no parade down Broad Street for Thursday night. But they finally did it. They beat the Giants 24-19 at the Linc (see Instant Replay).
For the first time in six weeks, the Eagles won a football game (see Roob's Observations).
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And for the first time all year, they beat a division opponent and won a one-score game.
"Hard to say what was different," Carson Wentz said. "We're the same guys. We're the same team. We're a never-say-die team. We're always fighting to the end. And today we just finished it out in the end."
The Eagles had been 0-6 in one-score games coming into Thursday and they had been 0-5 in division matchups.
"I'm just happy we're back in the win column. We got back in the win column," Brandon Graham said. "We got a win under our belt, feels good around here. It's going to be a long week because we had a Thursday game. Good Christmas present. It could definitely catapult us if we take care of business next week."
In order to seal their first win in over two months, the Eagles' defense needed to show up twice in the final minutes.
First, the Giants got the ball with 4:15 left, down five, and started to drive. They dinked and dunked their way all the way down to the Eagles' 32-yard line. After a false start, Nolan Carroll broke up a pass intended for Sterling Shepard on fourth down. Shepard wanted a pass interference call, and he probably had a case, but none came.
That gave the Eagles the ball with 1:54, but the offense was unable to get a first down and gave Eli Manning one more chance.
Manning and the Giants got the ball with 1:31 left and needed to go 85 yards to score a touchdown. Eventually, his deep pass with 14 seconds left was picked off by reserve safety Terrence Brooks and the Eagles finished the game in victory formation.
That's two stops within five minutes for an Eagles defense that has looked like an elite unit at times and a complete disaster at others this season.
"It means that we're still fighting," cornerback Nolan Carroll said. "Regardless of our record, regardless of what's going on throughout the game, we're going to fight to the end. That's a testament to this team. Guys don't stop. Guys don't quit no matter what's going on. I think that's the best thing we have going on in this locker room."
The best the Eagles can finish their 2016 season is with a 7-9 record. That's if they're able to come back next week and beat the Cowboys. That's not a great mark for a team that started the year 3-0 and had playoff aspirations. But it's something.
There might not be much left to play for, but isn't it better to win than lose? Doesn't it just feel better? For the guys in the locker room, especially the ones who will be back next year, it certainly does.
"It feels real good," Darren Sproles. "We don't quit. We're not quitters."
And for at least one night in late December, they weren't losers either.
