View from New York with Giants Beat Writer in Our Friday 5

The Eagles will play the Giants for the third time in six weeks, so rather than a Q&A with longtime beat writer Patricia Traina, here are five topics we discussed

Round 3 of Eagles-Giants is on the horizon.

This time, the stakes are at their highest, with the winner moving into next weekend's NFC Championship Game and the loser heading into the offseason.

This will be the third meeting between the two teams since Dec. 11, with the Eagles having won both previous matchups.

Rather than a question-and-answer segment with Giants Country publisher Patricia Traina, here is a segment we called our Friday Five:

X-FACTOR

OT Evan Neal.

The rookie has had a rough time since returning from a sprained MCL in Week 13. Since then, he’s allowed 31 of his 47 quarterback pressures (including postseason).

In that first meeting with the Eagles, Neal allowed eight of his ten total pressures against the Eagles, a season-high for the rookie. He insisted this week that he’s physically capable of playing, though he conceded that he’s not 100 percent - no one is at this point in the year.

That said, the last thing the Giants need is for quarterback Daniel Jones to have to run for his life on every drop back.

The Eagles have a very good defensive front, as evidenced by their 70-sack season and 52% pass-rush win rate. Neal is just one-fifth of the offensive line, but given his play down the stretch, he’s the one I’d be most concerned with entering this game.

KEY TO THE GAME

The Eagles have shown that they can be run at - 12 times this year, they’ve allowed over 100 rushing yards to the opponents, including against the Giants' backups in Week 18. In their last five games, the Eagles have allowed opponents 130.6 yards on the ground, more than their season average of 121.6 yards per game (tied for 16th in the league).

If I’m the Giants, who, by the way, finished with the league’s fourth-best rushing attack (148.2 yards/game) in the regular season, I’m looking to make the run game the offense's focal point, including some designed runs for quarterback Daniel Jones, whom I’ll talk more about in just a bit.

TOP STORYLINE

I think the returns of safety Xavier McKinney and cornerback Adoree’ Jackson are key. Both players were unavailable for the two regular season games against the Eagles.

When you look at the job they did last week against the Vikings and that explosive offense - they held Justin Jefferson to under 50 yards, and he didn’t even have a pass target in the fourth quarter - let’s just say that defensive coordinator Wink Martindale is probably thanking his lucky stars that he has them in the lineup this week against that equally dangerous Eagles receiver corps.

McKinney and Jackson allow Martindale to be a little more creative in his calls and perhaps even more aggressive in knowing that the back end should be able to hold its coverage. While they didn’t blitz much last week against Kirk Cousins, I could see them coming after Jalen Hurts this week.

2-3 BOLD PREDICTIONS

- I think you’re going to see the Giants run the ball a lot more this time, including getting Daniel Jones involved. New York is 6-0-1 this season when Jones rushes at least ten times. Jones rushed only four times in the first regular-season meeting, and Saquon Barkley nine times. I think you will see those numbers increase this time.

- I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that running back Boston Scott, who has scored 10 of his 17 career touchdowns against the Giants, will NOT score this week. And no, that’s not because of what defensive coordinator Wink Martindale said (which, by the way, if you want to see the full context of what Martindale said about Scott, check out this tweet:

https://twitter.com/Patricia_Traina/status/1615825343310356480

FINAL SCORE PREDICTION

I tend to look at how the teams have been playing recently rather than season-long records, and I have been very encouraged by how the Giants have played over the last month or so since the Eagles blew their doors off in Week 14.

Since then, the Giants have gone 3-2, including last weekend’s Wild Card game. Their two losses were by less than a touchdown, including the Week 18 game against the Eagles starters, a game Philly had to win to secure home-field advantage, in which the Giants played their backups.

I don’t think the Giants are yet built to blow anyone’s doors off (the Colts game was an exception), but I think this team feels it can stand toe-to-toe with anyone.

That said, I think this is going to come down to a game-winning field goal by the Eagles because that’s the kind of thing that seems to happen to the Giants when they play at the Linc - something ends up breaking their heart, leaving fans to wonder what could have been.

EAGLES 27, GIANTS 24

Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglesmaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.