EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Thousands of words can be spent analyzing almost any NFL game, but Pat Shurmur needed just nine to accurately summarize the Giants' loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.
"We didn't do anything well enough to win tonight," Shurmur said.
Anyone wishing to offer a dissent need only look at the final score: Eagles 34, Giants 13. Philadelphia raced out to leads of 14-3 after one quarter, 24-6 at halftime, and 31-6 in the third quarter.
"Credit Philadelphia, good football team that took advantage of things that we didn't do well, got ahead on the points," Shurmur said. "We didn't score enough points, we didn't keep them off the board, we didn't do anything well enough to win, so go back to the drawing board."
The Giants lost their third straight game to fall to 1-5, while the Eagles broke a two-game losing streak to improve to 3-3.
The Giants are off for 11 days until they play in Atlanta on Monday night, Oct. 22.
"Obviously not where we want to be," said quarterback Eli Manning. "I'm not happy about it. I am frustrated like everyone. Obviously, all you can do is worry about the next game. That is the way football works. Watch this game, learn from it, see what we can do better, work on it and get ready to play next Monday night in Atlanta."
The brightest of the Giants' few bright lights was rookie running back Saquon Barkley, who continues to demonstrate why the Giants chose him second overall in the NFL Draft. He rushed for a season-high 130 yards on 13 carries and caught nine passes for 99 yards to finish one receiving yard shy of becoming the first player in Giants history with a 100/100 game.
But given the final score, Barley wasn't even remotely excited about that.
"How did I feel about my performance tonight?" Barkley said, repeating a question. "Doesn't matter to me. We didn't get the win. To be completely honest, don't care. As long as we get the win, I don't care if I went for however many yards or even if I went for 30 yards, if we won, if we got the win, I would be satisfied. But at the end of the day we didn't, so none of that matters."
Barkley accounted for 229 of the Giants' 401 offensive yards. Manning completed 24 of 43 passes for 281 yards, no touchdowns, and one interception. Odell Beckham, Jr. had six receptions for only 44 yards, while Sterling Shepard contributed three catches for 37 yards.
Evan Engram was sidelined for the third consecutive game with a knee injury.
What did the Eagles do to stifle Beckham?
"Same thing that every other team is doing," Beckham said. "It's that two-man with the safety over the top. When I was inside, they had the safety over there. When I ran across the field, he was cutting me off, a lot of double covers. They had a very good game plan, they executed it very well."
When the Giants drafted Barkley, it was widely thought that the rookie's presence would help open up the field for Beckham. But that hasn't happened.
"Eventually they are going to have to game plan for him or he is going to do the same thing, he is going to torch them," Beckham said. "Their game plan was to not allow me to have any big plays, keep everything in front, safety over the top doubling."
The Eagles' offensive plan was similarly effective. Carson Wentz threw three touchdown passes, two to Alshon Jeffery (for 13 and one yards), and one to tight end Zach Ertz for 10 yards. Jeffery led the Eagles with eight receptions for 74 yards. Corey Clement had a one-yard touchdown run and Jake Elliott added field goals from 33 and 30 yards.
The Eagles advanced into the red zone on six occasions and scored every time - four touchdowns and two field goals.
"We just didn't stay in the coverage and we didn't do what we needed to do to make the play," linebacker Alec Ogletree said. "When you don't do that, and you're playing against a good team like that, they're going to find ways to make those plays."
Barkley scored the Giants' only touchdown on a 50-yard run in the third quarter. It briefly electrified the crowd, despite only closing the scoring gap to 31-13.
"You really don't even know that you're dominating (individually) in a game when you're down two touchdowns, three touchdowns," Barkley said. "Only thing in your mind is no matter what, if you're down by 40, if you're down by 50, 60 or whatever, you just continue to play your heart out for this team and for your brothers on the sideline, so you're not even focusing on that. I guess that's why you don't even notice it because that's just the mindset that I have."
Aldrick Rosas kicked field goals of 33 and 21 yards for the Giants, but was short on a 52-yard try.
Last Sunday, the Giants thought they had turned a corner when they played well at Carolina only to lose on a 63-yard field goal in the final second. They expected a carryover to the Eagles game. But a three-touchdown loss has them searching for answers.
"We sure didn't expect it to go this way," said linebacker Olivier Vernon, who had the Giants' only sack in his first game of the season. "We just got to bounce back. We got to look at the film, and see what we can adjust, and get back to it."
"Just gotta figure it out, honestly," safety Landon Collins said. "We're close. I mean we're making the plays out here. We're finding what we need to do. We gotta continue doing it on a consistent level."
