PHILADELPHIA -- The devastating injury to Victor Cruz overshadowed an embarrassing performance by the New York Giants' offensive line.
A unit that had been outstanding during the team's three-game winning streak was awful against the Philadelphia Eagles, allowing Eli Manning to be sacked six times.
Backup quarterback Ryan Nassib was sacked twice during mop-up duty, too.
"I didn't think we played well up front at all," coach Tom Coughlin said. "And I really don't know what the answer to that is. I'll let you know when I look at the tape."
This went way beyond sacks. Manning was under duress all night long. And each and every member of the O-line was responsible.
Will Beatty was called for a critical holding penalty, which negated an acrobatic touchdown catch by Larry Donnell.
Weston Richberg body-slammed an Eagles defender well after a play was over, earning a 15-yard unnecessary roughness flag and stalling an early drive.
J.D. Walton was beaten on at least one sack, John Jerry was called for holding and false start penalties, and Justin Pugh was a revolving door at right tackle, giving up multiple sacks, with a holding penalty as well.
"It was probably just the worst game I've ever played, hands down," Pugh said. "It's not even close."
Pugh was rated the fifth-best offensive tackle in the entire league through five weeks by Pro Football Focus. But he looked overmatched from the start here, giving up a strip-sack on the Giants' first possession (although he did recover the fumble).
"I started off in a bad way," Pugh said. "I let one play affect the next play, and that's something you can't do."
Richberg, the Giants' second-round draft pick, has been thrust into the starting lineup right away and had held up pretty well up until this point. But he clearly lost his composure on the play that earned him the personal foul.
"That's football. That happens all the time," a terse Richberg said after the game.
If that's football, it's bad football.
Beatty has been a rock at left tackle, enjoying a bounce-back year after a subpar 2013 which ended with a broken leg. He was the highest-rated tackle in the NFL entering Week 6, according to PFF.
"I gotta watch the film and see exactly what happened," Beatty said. "But as a group, as a team, we didn't show what we could do."
The Giants showed what they could do the past three weeks, when they gave up just one quarterback hit in each of their three games. But against the Eagles they appeared to revert back to 2013 form, when they allowed 40 sacks -- twice as many as they did in 2012.
Manning characteristically shouldered some of the blame after the game.
"It's not all on the offensive line," he said. "Some of it is definitely on me, and I've got to do a better job of getting the ball out quicker and going through my progressions."
Manning did hold onto the ball too long on a couple of occasions. But more often than not, he didn't have nearly enough time to do his job.
"I'm gonna learn from this, and I'm gonna work my ass off," Pugh said. "That's something I can guarantee you."
