Following Sunday's thrilling wild-card win over the Minnesota Vikings, the New York Giants are preparing to face division rival Eagles for the third time since Dec. 11.
Brian Daboll's team got torched by Philadelphia, 48-22, in Week 14, then hung tight and lost 22-16 in Week 18 despite sitting many of their starters in a meaningless regular-season finale.
On Monday, Daboll rejected the notion that those losses have any impact on Saturday night's Divisional Round matchup.
"None. It's how we go about our business this week, again, how we prepare, how we practice and then again how we play Sunday, or Saturday in this case," Daboll said. "Every game's a new game. Obviously, you have matchups that you've went against here over the last two times you played 'em. One week really has nothing to do with the next week, or one game has nothing with the next game, other than you take things from it, you learned from it, you try to grow from it. But it's going to be how we execute on Saturday and how we prepare throughout the week. That's our process -- it'll always be -- and that's what it'll be this week."
On Sunday, the Giants avenged one regular-season loss, with Daniel Jones playing lights out as Big Blue outlasted the Vikings in a rematch of their Week 16 bout.
Daboll swiftly turned his attention to Philly after the victory.
"We're in a short week here. There's a lot of work that needs to be done," he said. "I understand we just played these guys twice here in the last month. We'll play 'em again here coming up. There's familiarity on both sides, but again there's always a process you have to go through, and there'll be one less day to do it. So a lot of work that needs to be done."
In Week 14, Philly steamrolled the Giants, rushing for 253 yards and four rushing scores, while Saquon Barkley was slowed, and Jones was taken out in the fourth quarter of the blowout. In Week 18, key Big Blue players sat, but reserves battled an Eagles squad attempting to wrap up the No. 1 seed. Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts returned in the finale and clearly wasn't 100 percent, but the Giants should enter the playoff rematch with positive vibes after keeping it close with backups.
"It's a division game, so I think every division game is important," Daboll said. "We're obviously 0-2 against them this year, so we've got to do a good job this week of getting ready to play the best team in the league, the best in the NFC. ... Anytime you play a division game, it's a pretty good rivalry. Obviously, this is a pretty big one here, being so close to one another. They have a tremendous fan base, tremendous team, and I'm sure it'll be a big challenge for us."
The Giants have not won in Philadelphia since Week 8, 2013 (15-7), when Eli Manning and Michael Vick were the quarterbacks.
