Philadelphia Eagles (4-11) at New York Giants (8-7)

The Giants are in a must win game here, but that doesn’t mean that this means more to them. The Eagles would love nothing more here than to play spoiler and eliminate a division rival. That being said, I actually really like the Eagles here. There’s absolutely no pressure on them, while all the pressure is on the Giants. This is normally a good situation for a divisional dog.

The Eagles generally do well in these low pressure situations under Andy Reid. They’re 15-6 ATS as dogs of a touchdown or dog in the Andy Reid era, including 8-2 ATS in the division. Here, they are 7.5 point dogs (more nfl odds here). As bad as they’ve been this year, this year hasn’t been any different in that regard. They have covered both times as touchdown dogs this season, including a road win in Tampa Bay and a cover in Dallas in a divisional contest.

The Giants, meanwhile, are terrible in “easy win” situations, especially at home and especially in the 2nd half of the season (under Coughlin they are 53-19 ATS in the first 8 games of the season and 29-42 in the 2nd). They are 5-10 ATS as 2nd half home favorites of 4 or more under Tom Coughlin, including 2-6 ATS in the division. The Eagles also generally dominate the Giants, going 7-2 ATS against team since the start of the 2008 season. As bad as they’ve been this season, they actually beat them way back in week 4.

Yes, they were 3-1 at the time, but they weren’t playing good football, getting blown out in Arizona and beating Cleveland and Baltimore by a point a piece. Right now, they’re not playing great football either, but they’re not as bad as they once were. In their last 5 games, they have just one loss by more than 8 points, which was a weird Thursday Night game in which they were unfocused on a short week (having played 3 games in 11 days) and blew a 13-10 lead by turning it over 4 times in 5 plays.

It’s not like they’ve been playing easy teams either. They kept it within a touchdown of both the Cowboys and Redskins, who are actually ahead of the Giants in the standings. They beat Tampa Bay, who was playing well at the time, and they hung within 8 of a Carolina team that was about to go on a 4-1 stretch.

They’ll be going back to Michael Vick this week with Foles injured, but I have a feeling we’re going to get a great performance from him in an audition for a starting job after he’s been stewing on the bench for a few weeks. Maybe that was the wakeup call he needed. He was 19 of 30 for 241 yards (with 49 rushing yards) and a touchdown against these Giants in a win earlier this year. Expect him to be just good enough to trick some crappy quarterback needy team into paying him too much money this offseason (sorry Cardinals/Chiefs/Browns/Bills/Jaguars/Raiders/Jets fans).

The Giants, meanwhile, are not playing well at all right now, losing their last two games by a combined score of 67-14. Against Baltimore, they were outgained 533-186. Only the Bills, in a 45-3 loss in San Francisco, have been outgained by more in a game this season than the Giants were last week. Their last win was a game against the Saints in which they became the first team in 12 years to have 400+ return yards. That’s not going to be here to bail them out. They’re in no position to be laying more than a touchdown. I’m taking the points for a big play. The Giants, however, are my last survivor pick of the season.

New York Giants 27 Philadelphia Eagles 24 Survivor Pick (HOU, NE, NO, BAL, SF, ATL, CHI, GB, SD, PIT, DAL, DEN, DET, SEA, STL, IND)

Pick against spread: Philadelphia +7.5 (-110) 4 units

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