Watch CBS News

The Eagles Will Find Out How Good They Are Tonight

By Joseph Santoliquito

PHILADELPHIA, PA (CBS) — We don't know. No one knows. The Eagles probably don't know, either. The Eagles sit atop the NFC East, tied with the Dallas Cowboys, each with 4-1 records, but you couldn't tell by reading anything or listening to 94WIP this week, with the New York Giants coming to Lincoln Financial Field tonight.

The question on everyone's mind is: How good are the Eagles?

It is a rather fragile 4-1. The Eagles, with their decimated offensive line and limping linebacker corps, have somehow managed to win four of their first five games, when they could have just easily dropped four of five.

The scary thing is, it's a team that hasn't played up to what last season created, and we're still waiting.

But waiting for what?

After five games, is this what the Eagles will be this year, a helter-skelter mix of just getting by and blowing games that they seem in control of?

The fact is, we don't really know.

Maybe tonight's rivalry game with the Giants will shed some light. Eli Manning enters carrying one of the best three-game stretches of his career. The two-time Super Bowl champion has picked the Eagles apart in the past, as he's also come apart against the Eagles.

As for the Eagles, the running game seems a wreck. LeSean McCoy has done nothing, and Nick Foles doesn't seem to trust himself. You could almost see a bubble over his head as he thinks about throwing down field. He's missed a good number of open receivers this year, and there have been times when he has caught them, he's failed to deliver (see the worm ball he threw to Jordan Mathews in the third quarter of the St. Louis' game).

The Eagles' secondary, with the exception of free agent signee Malcolm Jenkins, has been adequate, but they only seem to be able to play one way—and that's in press coverage. Bradley Fletcher and Cary Williams have had their issues when they've been pulled back into zone.

The same mistakes, though correctable, keep surfacing (McCoy's east-west running, Foles' insecurity looking down field, a porous secondary, ect.). How long will they be exposed before the true 2014 Eagles are exposed? Or can this team show what it's truly capable of doing, when working right?

Can the Eagles solve some of those problems tonight against the Giants? Or is it the Giants that will reveal what appears to be a house of cards ready to teeter over at the first gasp of air?

Check Out These Sports Stories:

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.