Eagles Host Giants on Christmas Day: NFL Schedule Leaks

The Philadelphia Eagles were 3-0 against their NFC East rivals last season, with all three games fairly lopsided victories
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PHILADELPHIA – This is one of those leaks that is etched in stone: the Philadelphia Eagles will host the New York Giants on Christmas afternoon at 4:30.

The date and time of the game were released by the Eagles on Wednesday morning, more than 24 hours before the NFL is scheduled to reveal its full schedule on Thursday night in primetime.

One game that could have been accidentally leaked on Tuesday came when Donna Kelce, mom to brothers Jason and Travis, said the Eagles would visit the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 2 for a rematch of the Super Bowl LVII combatants.

The Giants proved quite a gift for the Eagles a season ago, having beaten their NFC East rivals from just up the New Jersey Turnpike not once, not twice, but all three times they played.

None of the three games was particularly close, either.

They beat a team full of Giants reserves in the final regular-season game, 22-16, in a game that was easier than the final score appears, to clinch the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs.

They hammered them just two weeks later in the division playoffs, 38-7.

The first win over in the trifecta came on Dec. 11, 48-22.

Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, the MVP runner-up last season, was 21 for 31 with two touchdowns, adding seven runs for 77 yards and another TD, in the first-game rout.

Playing with basically one arm, after an injury to his shoulder forced him to miss the previous two games before the regular-season finale, he threw for 229 yards.

In the playoff demolition, he was 16 for 24 with 154 yards and two touchdowns.

Meanwhile, Giant Killer, Boston Scott, ran 21 times for 119 yards and a touchdown in the three games. For his career against New York, Sfcott has scored 10 touchdowns.

None of it could prevent New York coach Brian Daboll from being named Coach of the Year, because, the belief was New York’s roster wasn’t very good and Daboll got them into the playoffs anyway.

Never mind that there were other coaches arguably more deserving, including Eagles coach Nick Sirianni, who guided his team to a franchise-record 14 regular-season victories. He was penalized for having a roster that was too good, though.

New York significantly upgraded its roster during the offseason, so expectations are probably higher for them this year, so maybe they won’t be the gift that keeps on giving when they visit Lincoln Financial Field on Christmas Day.


Ed Kracz covers the Philadelphia Eagles for SI's EaglesToday.

Please follow him and our Eagles coverage on Twitter at @kracze.

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Ed Kracz
ED KRACZ

Ed Kracz has been covering the Eagles full-time for over a decade and has written about Philadelphia sports since 1996. He wrote about the Phillies in the 2008 and 2009 World Series, the Flyers in their 2010 Stanely Cup playoff run to the finals, and was in Minnesota when the Eagles secured their first-ever Super Bowl win in 2017. Ed has received multiple writing awards as a sports journalist, including several top-five finishes in the Associated Press Sports Editors awards.