In a ‘heavyweight fight’ up front, a banged-up Eagles O-line scores a knockout in win over the Giants

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Divisional football games are like “heavyweight fights,” Landon Dickerson said, and the Eagles left guard has a pretty straightforward strategy when it comes to those kinds of duels.

“It’s very simple,” Dickerson said after the Eagles blew out the Giants. “If you’re in a fight, do you want to punch a man in the face or do you want to get punched in the face?”

There is no punching in football, at least not legally. The micro-level heavyweight fight Dickerson was discussing was the battle going on in the trenches. When football teams run the ball, their offensive linemen are on the attack. When they’re in pass protection, they’re mostly fending off attackers. Ask most offensive linemen what’s easier, and they’ll quickly tell you run blocking.

The Eagles brought with them to MetLife Stadium an offensive line that was in its third different iteration over the last three games. Left tackle Jordan Mailata, who had played the best and most consistent football along the offensive line through five games, hit injured reserve Friday with a hamstring injury, meaning that, starting Sunday, he would miss at least four games. In his stead, the Eagles slotted in Fred Johnson, who was at times a turnstile when he filled in for right tackle Lane Johnson during Week 4, when Lane Johnson was sidelined with a concussion.

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They were down a second starter, right guard Mekhi Becton, by halftime. And they had early in the game been weathering an onslaught against a Giants team that entered Sunday with an NFL-high 26 sacks. Jalen Hurts dropped back eight times on the first 15 Eagles plays and was sacked three times. Fred Johnson was responsible for one of them, maybe a second, and it looked like a battered offensive line would buckle and keep Sunday’s game closer than it needed to be.

But the Eagles quickly realized their best chance was to let their banged-up front throw punches instead of take them. They committed to giving the ball to Saquon Barkley and Kenneth Gainwell. They schemed ways to limit Dexter Lawrence’s ability to alter games the way he normally does as one of the best interior defensive linemen in football. He had two sacks in the first half and didn’t register a tackle in the second.

The Eagles ran 45 times for 269 yards, their most attempts and yards since going for 48 and 259 during a Week 2 win last season. They scored twice via Tush Push. Hurts attempted just 14 passes. It helped that the Eagles defense dominated Daniel Jones and the Giants offense. And it helped having Barkley, who starred inside his old stadium.

“I think as we got some runs going, we kind of got our momentum going a little bit,” said Tyler Steen, who was called into action when Becton left the game with a concussion. “I think once we start doing that, the O-line kind of feels like we’re firing and we get pretty confident.”

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While Fred Johnson was exposed a few times against a talented edge rusher in Brian Burns, he made his mark in the run game, sealing the edge on Barkley’s 55-yard burst in the second quarter, a play that also featured center Cam Jurgens pulling to the outside, doing his best Jason Kelce impression.

“You throw in new guys and I just feel like it takes time to get settled in and figure out what a team is doing and trying to see how they’re attacking you,” Johnson said. “I feel like once we settled in and got into a groove of running and throwing it, the game really came back to us and we ran away with it.”

The Eagles used tempo at times to keep the matchups on the field that they liked. Dickerson said getting on the ball faster helped the Eagles continue to execute plays, too.

“We talk about execution fuels emotion,” Dickerson said. “Regardless if it’s running the ball, throwing the ball, when you have big plays like that it always feels good. Guys get fired up.”

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It was easy to get fired up Sunday for Barkley, Fred Johnson said.

“He had us revved up and wanting to execute for him because it meant so much to him,” Johnson said.

Barkley’s teammates said he wasn’t saying anything extra in the huddle about wanting the ball against his former team. But he let them know it wasn’t going to take much, on this day more than most maybe.

“He gets into the huddle and if we start going run-heavy on stuff he just says, ‘Hey all I need is a little bit,’” Dickerson said. “And he makes stuff happen.”

Dickerson was asked if he noticed a concerted effort to commit to the run after the early pass protection problems.

“I don’t call the plays,” he said. “It’s really just whatever it takes to win the game.

“At the end of the day, whether it’s the run game or pass game, I don’t really care what we do as long as we’re doing the right thing to win the game. Yeah, some people like different things, but I like wins more than anything else.”

Beats getting punched.