Eagles Wrap up Top-Seed in Playoffs, Beat Giants in Return Game for Jalen Hurts

There’s probably room in the Eagles’ Batmobile filled with receivers A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, and Quez Watkins for Superman, who, of course, is Jalen Hurts.

The QB returned from a sprained shoulder to help the Eagles end a two-game losing streak and clinch the top-seed in the NFC playoffs, helping lift them to a 22-16 win over the New York Giants at Linocln Financial Field in the regular-season finale.

The win was the Eagles’ 14th of the season, which is a franchise record. The 2004 and 2017 teams each won 13 times, and both went to the Super Bowl.

It was a win that earned them a bye next week when the playoffs open, made them 14-3, and gave them their first NFC East title since 2019. They went 4-2 in the division, with two of the wins coming against the Giants.

Ideally, the Eagles would have liked to have kept their QB on the bench for another week and give him more time to heal, but after going 0-2 with Gardner Minshew filling in, they could not afford that luxury.

Enter Hurts, who did so to chants of MVP from the crowd.

He didn’t do anything spectacular.

The game plan was pretty vanilla and the Eagles’ coaches did their best to protect him.

Hurts threw his first red-zone interception of the season after a TD pass to DeVonta Smith in the third quarter was wiped away when Landon Dickerson was called for being two yards illegally downfield.

His passer rating was 65.1 and he completed 20 of 35 throws for 229 yards.

What was heroic was answering the call when his team needed him, and they certainly needed his presence even if he was a bit rusty.

This was a must-have game even though Philly was the first team to clinch a playoff spot nearly a month ago.

A loss would have made the 49ers the No. 1 seed and the possibility exited that a loss would have dropped them to the No. 5 seed if the Cowboys would have been able to beat Washington, which they didn’t, losing ?? to the Commanders.

Looking for heroes, look no further than Jake Elliott, who kicked a career-high five field goals covering 32, 54, 39, 54, and, with 3:21 to play in the game, 22 yards.

The final kick was the exclamation point on a 15-play drive that chewed up 6:43 and was the answer to a 14-yard touchdown run from New York QB Davis Webb that pulled the Giants to within 19-9 with 10:04 to play.

The PAT pass was broken up by Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, who was playing his first game since suffering a lacerated kidney against the Green Bay Packers on Nov. 27. He had seven tackles, behind White, who had 12, and T.J. Edwards, who posted 10.

Already locked into the No. 6 seed, New York (9-7-1) rested several key starters, including DT Dexter Lawrence and RB Saquon Barkley, then started Webb at quarterback after calling him up from the practice squad.

Webb hadn’t thrown a pass in the NFL despite being in the league for six years when he was drafted in the third round by New York.

The Eagles defense made life difficult for Webb, though the career backup did a good job of moving around enough and getting the ball out quickly to negate Philly’s fearsome pass rush.

Entering the game just four sacks shy of tying the NFL record of 72 sacks in a season, which was held by the 1984 Chicago Bears, the Eagles managed just two and they came from unlikely sources – linebacker Kyzir White and special teams standout Zech McPhearson.

McPhearson’s came when the Giants tried a fake field goal at the end of the first quarter.

Webb finished 23-for-40 with 168 yards and a passer rating of 75.8. He ran for one score and threw a 25-yard TD pass to Kenny Golladay with 1:38 to play.

Reed Blankenship recovered the onside kick and the offense used three kneel downs to run out the clock.

The Eagles wasted little time in throwing Hurts back into the fire when they had him throw six times on their first possession.

He completed three of those six, including the first one on a quick slant to Brown, who turned it into a 35-yard gain to break the franchise record for most yards receiving in a season held by Mike Quick, who had 1,409 in 1983.

Brown had 10 catches for 95 yards to end his season with 94 receptions, 1,496 yards, and 11 touchdowns.

The Eagles added to their lead, getting Smith involved. Smith had a catch to break the franchise record for most receptions in a season which had been held by Irving Fryar who 88 in 1996.

Brown also eventually broke the mark.

Smith had seven catches for 67 yards and ended his second season in the league with 95 receptions, 1,196 yards, and seven TDs.

Boston Scott put another stamp in his nickname as Giants killer, scoring on an 8-yard run that gave the Eagles a 10-0 lead in the first quarter. Scott has 17 career TDs, with 10 of those coming against New York.

He led the team in rushing with 54 yards on nine runs.

As a team, the Eagles had 135 yards, with Kenny Gainwell getting 35 and Miles Sanders, who is nursing a sore knee that will benefit from the bye, had 33.

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.